Category: General

Sorry I haven’t been posting here much lately. Three things have been preventing me:

• I had to send my beloved iBook back to Apple to repair a display issue. Luckily, even though my laptop is out of warranty, Apple covered the cost of the repair, which would have been over $300 (motherboard replacement). I took it to the Apple Store in Washington Square on Sunday, and had it back in my possession on Wednesday evening; they had to send it back to “Depot”, wherever that is, to do the repair. Much quicker than my friends thought it would be…
• Secondly, my new kitten, Smacky, is taking up a lot of my time. He’s a bundle of energy! I have metric tonnes of “cute kitten stories” to post…
• Lastly, a lot of my writing energy is going to a new site, Geeks Against Bush, a site my friends and I have founded to collect information and well-reasoned arguments for sending George W. Bush back to Crawford, TX. We call ourselves “Tech Support for broken America”. Check out the site and contribute to the discussion in our forums — even if you disagree with us. Maybe even especially if you disagree with us. We want to hear what you have to say.

OK, actually, there’s been a fourth situation that’s been taking my time and attention lately, that is hopefully dealt with… you may or may not be reading more about that here. But even if you do, it will be in non-specific terms…

I ran to work today. 5.07 miles, did it in 48:25.61, for a 9:33 pace!!!

Whoo-HOOO! I’m a rock star!

Remember those old stories about Faeries? I’m not talking about gay folk (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I’m talking the mysterious magical folk, the ones that modern lore has reduced to tiny elves baking cookies or working at the North Pole. Yeah, I’m talking about the inspriation for faerie tales.

However, the original faeries were powerful beings, only vaguely human, and as beautiful as they were cruel.

In a lot of the old stories, some dumb lucky human would stumble, at night, into a circle of mushrooms or something, or be lured into a forest by a glimpse of some alien exotic beauty, and come face to face with an enigma: faeries. There would be riddles, or dancing, or seduction… and somehow he’d come away with gold. Lots of gold, enough to make him and his descendents richer than a clever pirate, certainly richer than a king or other lord or lady of the time.

He’d escape, and plan revenge on his enemies, or benevolent dreams of rescuing a maiden, or whatever turned his crank. None of it mattered, however. He’d haul his bag of faerie gold back towards his village or the castle or whatnot, thinking that this morning was the turning point in his dreary life.

But as soon as sunlight, rather than the fickle and changing moonlight, touched all this glittery wealth, the illusion was revealed. All those coins and jewellry would crumble into sticks and leaves. He’d be left with worse than dirt. All gone. He’d been fooled into thinking that faeries were dumb enough to let a stupid mortal vanish off some of their treasure. Silly mortal.

Sigh.

Some relationships are like that. Under certain, controlled conditions, everything seems fine. There’s laughter, fellowship, familiarity. Good times, had by all involved.

But when the cold light of reality is allowed to touch the friendship… poofta! Nothing but twigs and dead plants and scraps of spider silk. Maybe even a spider or two, to add a poisonous bite to the lesson.

Why is that? What makes a son of Adam think that he can battle a denizen of an eternal race that thrives on uncaused effects… and win? When he knows, from stories told by friends and family, and even from direct experience, that such a creature is not to be trusted, not to be believed? When he knows that to allow faerie gold into his life is to invite chaos, and giving someone so untrustworthy any power over him at all is to wish pain and confusion on himself?

Life. It’s a funny ol’ thing… ain’t it?

My new kitten, Smacky, is intensely cute. We were playing “Hide And Go Smack” this weekend. He’d hide around a corner, waiting for me to walk by, then jump out and smack my feet or ankles, then tear off like a maniac. Then it’s my turn to hide somewhere, and jump out when he comes around the corner.

Downtown today, I saw a tall black woman, wearing a t-shirt that read (and I am not making this up):

“Blondes Do It Better”

Um… I don’t get it.

I’m walking downtown (heading back to my office, if you must know) and standing on a street corner waiting for the light to change, or for traffic to clear, whichever comes first. As I’m looking down the street, I see this small SUV, a Honda CRV or something similar, heading towards me, and it’s got it’s turn signal on. It looks like it’s going to turn onto a wrong-way street. That catches my attention.

It doesn’t, in fact, turn. But it pulls up in front of me, blocking the pedestrian walkway. It pulls up behind a row of cars parallel-parked on that side of the street.

And the car is full of bald Asian guys, all wearing orange-colored robes. They look like monks or something. There’s five or six of them.

The driver’s side window is down, and I’m feeling annoyance that they’re blocking my way, and on top of it they’re illegally parked.

So I say, “That’s not a parking space” into the window.

The driver turns and looks at me, and starts to say, “Oh, I know, we’re just here for a second–” but I cut him off and repeat, “That’s not a parking space. That’s illegal.”

He starts to repeat his statement, and the other guys in the car are looking at themselves and talking amongst themselves, and I start to think that I’m going to get my ass kicked by a bunch of pacifist Buddhist monks for pointing out their illegal parking. But, somehow, I just can’t stop myself.

“I’m just saying,” I continue, “that what you’re doing is ILLEGAL.” And I make air-quotes around the word ILLEGAL.

Luckily the bald robe-wearing guys aren’t getting out of the car. They’re still just sitting there, and the driver is leaning out the window and trying to explain himself. I repeat, once more, for emphasis, the single word “ILLEGAL” and again make with the air-quotes.

And then, because the light has changed, I cut around the tail end of their car and cross the street.

They’ve already posted results for the Pints to Pasta 10K. I did slightly better than I thought I had done…

I’ve added those results to my Trophy Page.

Thought I’d share this picture of me bonding with my new kitten:

Click image to go to Smacky’s picture gallery

…so it looks like “Smacky” very much fits his personality. I think it’s going to stick… but I’m not entirely sure. Stay tuned for the poll which should be up tomorrow.

CAKE is offering samples from their upcoming album “Pressure Chief”, with new song snippets every Tuesday. Today is Tuesday. Go there, listen, enjoy.

Site opens in a new window.

So far, there are three clips —

1. Wheels
2. No Phone
3. Take It All Away

Me likey. But then, hey, I’m a sucker for Cake’s wry humor and musical eclecticism.

UPDATE 12/06/2009 – Player no longer works. Sorry.

Small personal note: today would have been my mother’s 75th birthday.

She passed away in June 2001, of lung cancer.

If I had a picture scanned, and a working picture gallery, I’d post something here.