I'm reading a book called "Fade." It's young-adult fiction written by a talented guy named Robert Cormier. Actually, it's more like regular-adult fiction disguised as young-adult fiction. Thematically, it's about as dark as it gets, exploring the depths of human depravity, examining what people do when they think others aren't looking.
The story is about a young man (ninth grade) who realizes he's inherited the ability to become invisible, or "fade." If it were made into a Hollywood story, the logline would read something like, "What he thought was his gift, became his curse." Because, as our protagonist discovers, perhaps you don't want to see what others do under the assumed cloak of privacy. Maybe that ability would destroy any positive illusions about humanity you've to this point maintained.
Everyone's played the what superpower would you want game. My answer is usually the smart-ass, "the ability to steal others' powers," but assuming the question is posed with an Aladdin-esque caveat of "no wishing for more wishes," I choose the ability to read minds, including my own caveat, which is that I have the ability to turn off my power whenever I choose.
Today, I was thinking that the Internet grants us some of these powers. We have the ability, often, to monitor each other anonymously. Theoretically, we know when our activities are visible to others, but in reality I think most people underestimate the number of invisibles monitoring their online public lives. This reality manifests itself in the most blatant and unseemly way in conversations like this:
Bob: Did you see "30 Rock" last night?
Joe: Yeah, really solid episode.
Bob: And Tracy Morgan is funny.
Joe: Um. Did you read my facebook status last night?
Bob: What?
Joe: It said, "I don't care what they say, Tracy Morgan is HILARIOUS."
Bob: Oh, yeah. I remember that now.
Joe: Okay.
Bob: Sorry.
Joe: Okay.
30 September 2008
29 September 2008
The Beatles, as always, are correct
28 September 2008
It's harder than it looks
Painting walls, in theory it seems easy. In fact, it's exhausting and hot.
But I live in a new, attractive apartment now, and it feels magnificent. Back to work.
But I live in a new, attractive apartment now, and it feels magnificent. Back to work.
26 September 2008
Shorties
I'm going to start making small posts nearly every day in an effort to keep it regular. It's part of the new design.
This time, I just want to say AMC may be catching up to HBO as my favorite channel for original programming. "Mad Men" is just the right amount of slick, funny and sad. Also, I'm mighty impressed by "Breaking Bad," which I thought would be a horrible knock-off of "Weeds" but in fact proved itself darker, more ambitious and more fulfilling than the latter. I've never seen anything like it, actually.
As far as news goes, I'm siding with CNN. Network news bores me. The other cable options are Fox and MSNBC. For awhile I liked MSNBC, I think because they have colorful and funny characters such as Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson. But now Tucker's gone, the annoying short-haired woman has a show, and Olbermann occasionally makes my insides hurt. Fox News is entertaining in five-minute increments, unless the blowhard to outblow all blowhards Sean Hannity is on, in which case zero will do me just fine. Of course, like most people my age, the Internet is my primary news source.
For sports, I have no preference. Although, I miss the Sunshine Network from back in Florida for Magic games.
This time, I just want to say AMC may be catching up to HBO as my favorite channel for original programming. "Mad Men" is just the right amount of slick, funny and sad. Also, I'm mighty impressed by "Breaking Bad," which I thought would be a horrible knock-off of "Weeds" but in fact proved itself darker, more ambitious and more fulfilling than the latter. I've never seen anything like it, actually.
As far as news goes, I'm siding with CNN. Network news bores me. The other cable options are Fox and MSNBC. For awhile I liked MSNBC, I think because they have colorful and funny characters such as Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson. But now Tucker's gone, the annoying short-haired woman has a show, and Olbermann occasionally makes my insides hurt. Fox News is entertaining in five-minute increments, unless the blowhard to outblow all blowhards Sean Hannity is on, in which case zero will do me just fine. Of course, like most people my age, the Internet is my primary news source.
For sports, I have no preference. Although, I miss the Sunshine Network from back in Florida for Magic games.
25 September 2008
It's illegal because...well, it seems dangerous
The Terminator has signed into law a bill outlawing text messaging while driving. It comes after a similar law outlawing driving while holding your cell phone to your ear which, um, doesn't strike me as more dangerous than driving while trying to change your t9 autospeller's choice from "of" to "me." That seems a bit like outlawing assault a few months before your outlaw battery. Anyway, here's the bill's esteemed author's explanation of its necessity.
"Texting while driving seems so obviously unsafe, it's hard to believe anyone would attempt it, yet everyday observation tells us it's all too common," Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, said. "I think this bill is a lifesaver."
The bold is mine, just to give you an idea of the rationale behind lawmaking. Anecdotal evidence before data, that's the ticket.
"Texting while driving seems so obviously unsafe, it's hard to believe anyone would attempt it, yet everyday observation tells us it's all too common," Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, said. "I think this bill is a lifesaver."
The bold is mine, just to give you an idea of the rationale behind lawmaking. Anecdotal evidence before data, that's the ticket.
17 September 2008
Guess Who I Saw?
I mean "whom," obviously. Anyway, you'll meet he, I mean him, later.
The Gators are back, and for that I am grateful. Thanks to the generous hospitality of Sue and Brian, who hosted a watching party, I was able to see my favorite Florida team roll over my least favorite one. The orange-and-blue squad did not exactly dominate the orange-and-green squad, but the win was mighty fine nonetheless. It’s a bit strange blogging about football, not only because I am hardly a fanatical sports guy, but also because it reminds me that I’ve been doing this almost a year. When I began the blog, we were nearing the middle of the season.
The job is still pretty cool. Or hot. I guess it's cooler (i.e., hotter) to say "hot" these days. Last week, the going got a little rough as I made the transition from trainee to full-fledged assistant. This was not an official sort of thing but rather an unspoken one. I showed up one day and was expected to know how to do most everything. And now, I do. Still, for two or three days tension was like a tiny thong on a fat girl as I forgot to tell the boss about a phone call here or neglected to file a piece of paper there. We had a little chat, and the boss basically told me that now was the time I needed to do things on my own and not screw up every five minutes. I agreed to that, in concept. The weird thing about being employed like this is that there are expectations to meet. I mean, I actually beat out other people for this job. That is more or less a first for me, unless you count beating out people with criminal records or who are too young to participate in the legal operation of a roller coaster in Florida. It has made me realize my weaknesses, which happen to be organization, oral communication (socializing), and attention to detail in regards to things I don’t necessarily find important. It has also helped me recognize my strengths, which happen to be focus and thoroughness (which I guess could be called “work ethic”), ability to learn quickly, and consistent output of quality work (probably as a result of the first two). I would have mixed some of these up in an interview, but now I know exactly where I stand. I’m trying to improve where I can and maintain where I can’t.
My family in Florida had a bit of a trying weekend for reasons I can’t go into on the Internet, but I just want to say that I’m thankful that everything is okay right now. I have already booked my Thanksgiving flight home, which is a nice change from my usual last-minute scrambling.
YO! I saw the guy from the Coke Zero commercials, the tall guy with the glasses. He was eating at a restaurant. And a day later I saw this guy. Man, celebrity sighting is getting old.
My friend Adam just moved here, which is an exciting development. He’s tall like me. Two other tall people, Patrick and Ryan, are also on the West coast now, though not in LA.
It seems I was a bit quick to embrace Gov. Palin as the next great thing, although I still stand by my assertion that she seems pretty cool. The problem is, I thought she was more small government and less let’s-expand-the-empire-and-get-it-going-with-Russia-again-while-we’re-at-it. But I guess that’s a side effect of running with the guy who doesn’t mind spending the next century or so in Iraq singing “bomb Iran” to the tune of "Barbara Ann." Incidentally, I also hate the Beach Boys version of the song.
I think Palin for the Republicans has the same sort of tabula rasa effect that Obama had on the Democrats. They both seem to be politicians upon whom you can, with great ease, project your own views. It’s for different reasons, of course. Palin seems to have some strongly defined views of certain subjects, it’s just that she was relatively unknown and could therefore represent anything you wanted her to represent. I, for instance, wanted her to represent a libertarian voice in the election, so I seized onto the facts that she cut spending in her state (supposedly), sympathized with the Alaskan Independence Party, and once said Ron Paul was a pretty cool dude, all while ignoring that facts that she didn’t really cut spending all that much, has turned her back on most that interesting stuff in her past and, of course, has agreed to run alongside John McCain. As far as Obama goes, I’m sure he has some strong convictions as well, but the reason people were able to project their beliefs onto him (less so now that the primary is over) is because he deliberately kept his rhetoric vague.
All that being said, this financial situation with the banks and mortgage companies is pretty fucked up, and both of the major parties are planning on making it worse, just in different ways. It frightens me, it really does, that corporate welfare has become not only acceptable, but the norm. It's expected. I know the term fascism is thrown around a bit too freely these days (e.g., “my parents are such fascists,” Islamo-fascism), but isn’t the true definition of that term something like the government and the corporate powers merging into one?
I think much political is on my mind because last weekend I had an extensive political debate with friends over tacos. Usually we go to In-and-Out and sit for three to four hours and talk about movies, pop culture and ourselves. It’s a fun time, but on this occasion it was tacos and politics, still three or four hours. I love these kinds of discussions because even though often it seems that you’re going in circles and nobody is ever going to change his or her mind, it’s not really true. Sure, it’s rare that somebody changes his or her mind in the middle of an argument. But that’s because it would be absurd, not to mention humiliating for most people. Think about it, someone leaning across the table in the heat of an argument, pausing, and then taking a deep breath to proclaim, “You know what? You’re right!” and then skipping over to the other side of the table to sit with his newly found, like-minded friends. It’s silliness, I tell you. But there’s a quotation by C.S. Lewis that’s always stuck with me. It may seem odd that I would paraphrase a Christian apologist here, but what can I say? I’m a complicated being.
My friend Clive Staples says, “The very man who has argued you down, will sometimes be found, years later, to have been influenced by what you said.”
In an effort not to end on a note of pompous profundity, here’s a video of some strange girl singing a song that’s slightly better than “Barbara Ann.”
The Gators are back, and for that I am grateful. Thanks to the generous hospitality of Sue and Brian, who hosted a watching party, I was able to see my favorite Florida team roll over my least favorite one. The orange-and-blue squad did not exactly dominate the orange-and-green squad, but the win was mighty fine nonetheless. It’s a bit strange blogging about football, not only because I am hardly a fanatical sports guy, but also because it reminds me that I’ve been doing this almost a year. When I began the blog, we were nearing the middle of the season.
The job is still pretty cool. Or hot. I guess it's cooler (i.e., hotter) to say "hot" these days. Last week, the going got a little rough as I made the transition from trainee to full-fledged assistant. This was not an official sort of thing but rather an unspoken one. I showed up one day and was expected to know how to do most everything. And now, I do. Still, for two or three days tension was like a tiny thong on a fat girl as I forgot to tell the boss about a phone call here or neglected to file a piece of paper there. We had a little chat, and the boss basically told me that now was the time I needed to do things on my own and not screw up every five minutes. I agreed to that, in concept. The weird thing about being employed like this is that there are expectations to meet. I mean, I actually beat out other people for this job. That is more or less a first for me, unless you count beating out people with criminal records or who are too young to participate in the legal operation of a roller coaster in Florida. It has made me realize my weaknesses, which happen to be organization, oral communication (socializing), and attention to detail in regards to things I don’t necessarily find important. It has also helped me recognize my strengths, which happen to be focus and thoroughness (which I guess could be called “work ethic”), ability to learn quickly, and consistent output of quality work (probably as a result of the first two). I would have mixed some of these up in an interview, but now I know exactly where I stand. I’m trying to improve where I can and maintain where I can’t.
My family in Florida had a bit of a trying weekend for reasons I can’t go into on the Internet, but I just want to say that I’m thankful that everything is okay right now. I have already booked my Thanksgiving flight home, which is a nice change from my usual last-minute scrambling.
YO! I saw the guy from the Coke Zero commercials, the tall guy with the glasses. He was eating at a restaurant. And a day later I saw this guy. Man, celebrity sighting is getting old.
My friend Adam just moved here, which is an exciting development. He’s tall like me. Two other tall people, Patrick and Ryan, are also on the West coast now, though not in LA.
It seems I was a bit quick to embrace Gov. Palin as the next great thing, although I still stand by my assertion that she seems pretty cool. The problem is, I thought she was more small government and less let’s-expand-the-empire-and-get-it-going-with-Russia-again-while-we’re-at-it. But I guess that’s a side effect of running with the guy who doesn’t mind spending the next century or so in Iraq singing “bomb Iran” to the tune of "Barbara Ann." Incidentally, I also hate the Beach Boys version of the song.
I think Palin for the Republicans has the same sort of tabula rasa effect that Obama had on the Democrats. They both seem to be politicians upon whom you can, with great ease, project your own views. It’s for different reasons, of course. Palin seems to have some strongly defined views of certain subjects, it’s just that she was relatively unknown and could therefore represent anything you wanted her to represent. I, for instance, wanted her to represent a libertarian voice in the election, so I seized onto the facts that she cut spending in her state (supposedly), sympathized with the Alaskan Independence Party, and once said Ron Paul was a pretty cool dude, all while ignoring that facts that she didn’t really cut spending all that much, has turned her back on most that interesting stuff in her past and, of course, has agreed to run alongside John McCain. As far as Obama goes, I’m sure he has some strong convictions as well, but the reason people were able to project their beliefs onto him (less so now that the primary is over) is because he deliberately kept his rhetoric vague.
All that being said, this financial situation with the banks and mortgage companies is pretty fucked up, and both of the major parties are planning on making it worse, just in different ways. It frightens me, it really does, that corporate welfare has become not only acceptable, but the norm. It's expected. I know the term fascism is thrown around a bit too freely these days (e.g., “my parents are such fascists,” Islamo-fascism), but isn’t the true definition of that term something like the government and the corporate powers merging into one?
I think much political is on my mind because last weekend I had an extensive political debate with friends over tacos. Usually we go to In-and-Out and sit for three to four hours and talk about movies, pop culture and ourselves. It’s a fun time, but on this occasion it was tacos and politics, still three or four hours. I love these kinds of discussions because even though often it seems that you’re going in circles and nobody is ever going to change his or her mind, it’s not really true. Sure, it’s rare that somebody changes his or her mind in the middle of an argument. But that’s because it would be absurd, not to mention humiliating for most people. Think about it, someone leaning across the table in the heat of an argument, pausing, and then taking a deep breath to proclaim, “You know what? You’re right!” and then skipping over to the other side of the table to sit with his newly found, like-minded friends. It’s silliness, I tell you. But there’s a quotation by C.S. Lewis that’s always stuck with me. It may seem odd that I would paraphrase a Christian apologist here, but what can I say? I’m a complicated being.
My friend Clive Staples says, “The very man who has argued you down, will sometimes be found, years later, to have been influenced by what you said.”
In an effort not to end on a note of pompous profundity, here’s a video of some strange girl singing a song that’s slightly better than “Barbara Ann.”
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