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why must potato salad be so go… October 31, 2008

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why must potato salad be so good?

haven’t pickup guitar in so lo… October 29, 2008

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haven’t pickup guitar in so long it’s starting to look like someone else’s

Reverse Bradley October 28, 2008

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Or something.

For every person who claims he’ll vote for Obama then secretly votes for McCain, I’m sure there’s also a person who publicly claims to support McCain who will really vote for Obama. Right? I mean, isn’t this idea of people who make public statements then secretly do the opposite something that happens all the time, in all directions, for all kinds of different reasons? And doesn’t the fact that it does happen in both directions tend to dampen any statistical significance?

You know there are people who don’t want to publicly reveal they have changed their mind about McCain and will vote for Obama.

Fireplace October 27, 2008

Posted by admin in : Irrelevant, Lies , 2comments

So I bought one of those electric fireplace inserts for my fireplace. I never liked using the Duraflame type logs — there’s a lot of ash, they don’t really burn warm enough, and since they don’t the convection current is not always strong enough to draw the smoke out, so we get backdraft, causing us to open the windows and turn on fans, with the opposite effect of a warm, cozy evening by the fire.

I’d like to get a gas insert, but my cohort doesn’t respond well to gas appliances and is very sensitive to that sort of thing. So I got an electric one, which really has a very compelling illusion, especially once you put it behind a glass fireplace door. I think this might be corny and I may regret it ten years from now. But right now it’s kind of cool.

Then I decided the illusion was not complete without sound effects. So I downloaded some fireplace crackling mp3s and hid my little mp3 player behind the fireplace door, and wala*, a complete illusion. It’s fake, it’s dumb, but it’s also cool and I like it.

* I know how to spell voilà

Overheard at Trader Joe’s October 26, 2008

Posted by admin in : Discourse, Irrelevant, Lies, Narrative, Psycho/Spirit , 3comments

So I’m in line at checkout. A vaguely foreign looking, fashionably dressed lady is checking out. Clerk is energetic, friendly, dutifully cheerful young man, making chit chat with the customers as he works. He notices her unusual blouse, and says, “I like your blouse.”

She says, “Thank you. It’s my design. I am fashion-designer.” Her accent confirms she’s foreign, but I could not identify it, perhaps Russian, but she’s dark, could be eastern European or Turkish, Iranian or something else. I look more closely at the blouse and it’s got silk-screened images of a photograph of the very woman’s own face, cut and arranged into an abstract geometric design.

Clerk continues admiring the design as he bags, and them says, “Well, it looks like you’re doing what you should be doing.”

To which the woman replies. “I am. Are you?”

The clerk is obviously taken aback, and continues bagging her groceries as he searches for a reply, which he eventually comes up with, a half-hearted, insincere-sounding, “I hope not.”

The woman offers a vague sounding inspirational message about keeping your dreams.

She leaves and the clerk greets me. I want to say, “Jeez, you try to give someone a compliment.” But I don’t say that and just say the minimum, “How are you?” “I’m fine”. “Thank you.” And I leave.

Does her reply sound as unkind to other people as it did to me? Would my offer of solidarity to the clerk have been welcome, or reinforced a message that he should feel bad about what he is doing? What kind of person takes a compliment like that and turns it around to insult the complimenter? Why should a fashion-designer feel like her accomplishments need to be recognized as greater than those of the shop clerk? A fashion-designer can be an awful, unhappy person, and a young grocery store clerk can be a happy, cool, spiritually evolved person. Why the need to define one’s self and others by their occupation? What other accomplishments has the clerk made in his young life that could easily be seem as remarkable that totally transcend his occupation?

I know there is a cultural aspect to this that I have not quite figured out. Maybe the woman is conscious of her class and was somehow offended by the person of lower social status presuming to be so forward and friendly (even though that’s typical of this culture, and especially characteristic of this store). Maybe her desire to encourage the young man was totally sincere if awkward, and only came across as an insult as a translation loss.

I recognized this pattern of conversational exchange. I have been on the wrong end of it before.

I remember once chatting with an old high-school friend who was enjoying some success in a local theatrical pursuit. I said how impressed I was, and how glad I was for her and congratulations and all that. Her response was, “What about you? Are you writing? Have you published? What’s stopping you? I am a success and so can you…” In other words, for her to be successful, it meant I had to be viewed as a failure. Words of encouragement which were rooted in one-upmanship. I had not said anything about feeling like a failure or that I was somehow in need of such encouragement. It was gloating.

I also remember another time when I was friendly with a group of born again Christians in college. They seemed so beautiful, happy. Their apartment was so warm and comfortable. They were smart and like to laugh, and they made me laugh which was why I liked them. I felt like was being all open minded. I was kind of a punk in those days — but even though my taste in music was the Clash I was open-minded enough to express appreciation for my hosts soft, easy, jazzy, Christian instrumental stuff (I think it was called “Fresh Air” but I’m having trouble finding info on it, maybe this). Point being I was trying to be a good guest by complimenting them on the stuff of their lives they were sharing with me. Which they immediately saw as an opportunity for some Christian evangelizing (what did I expect?): “We’re blessed. And so can you, if you accept Jesus… You can have all of this and more…” basically was their message. They immediately assumed that because I was being a cordial guest paying them a compliment, that meant I was somehow expressing regrets for my own sorry life. I was far too well behaved (some punk, I know) to do what I should have done, something like piss on the record collection.

But Jesus Christ, can’t people take a compliment?

This makes me realize a bias I have. To me, evidently, the only proper way to accept a compliment is with humility. To not express humility in the face of a compliment, and worse, to express pride in that which is being complimented on, seems to offend me enough to want to piss on people’s records, or at least blog about it. Maybe this is not the only or even best way to receive a compliment, but it’s where I come from. (Some Christians my hosts were.)

I’ve over-thought it, I know. But I would welcome any other aspects to this dynamic or this anecdote if anyone has anything to share. I’m sure I’m missing something, and I grant that this story reveals as much about my own prejudices and insecurities as it reveals about anyone else.

Anyway, that happened.

BTW, try the lemon crisp cookies from TJ’s!

Video Editing October 24, 2008

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Been playing around with Adobe Premier Elements 7 to make some homemade DVDs. Had to make one for my parent’s 50th anniversary, for example, and made a couple with Yosemite trip videos. It’s not a pro app, more of a hobbyist or non-professional user, but still it’s a nice way to edit simple home videos. I have never been much of a graphical artists — I never got into creating Flash for example, or creating other graphics or image editing beyond the minimum to make something look halfway decent on a web page. Technically I’ve always been stronger in server side application coding or high level application design, but weak on graphical design. I can recognize good UI design, and I know what client code can and should do, but it’s something I’d rather other people actually did.

Creatively I’ve been comfortable with words, lyrics, songwriting, and even painting a little bit, but not so much with computer graphics. I used to be able to take decent photographs using my old Pentax K-1000, but I still don’t have a digital SLR and my dig cam pix have always come out looking like snapshots and not art. I have a video camera but a shaky hand and not much skill in generating video footage.

But I have discovered a pleasure and a little bit of an ability to edit video. More of an interest than a skill right now, but I’m a little surprised that it’s something I can do.

So I guess video editing is a thing unto itself, it’s a niche — not photography, not cinematography, not direction, but editing. I guess I used to fantasize about making movies, being a director. I don’t think I would be good at that — a director is like an orchestra conductor — it’s about managing this complicated campaign of people, sets, actors, crew, etc. I’m sure I am incapable of that sort of thing. I am neither obstinate or mean enough to dominate a crew with my artistic vision like a Hitchcock, nor smooth and diplomatic enough to deal with all these personalities.

But video editing, that’s not that different from what I do now, socially speaking anyway, which is working alone in front of a computer all day.  I’d like to experiment a little bit with it now that I have a little taste. Try to pull in some sort of footage from other sources, and mixing it up to learn what possible effects I can create that way. I should probably do that with better tools like After Effects and Premier Pro and other tools once I get the hang of it.

I’m probably years away from having anything to show , but it’s a new part of the brain to exercise.

first coffee since July. taxii… October 24, 2008

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first coffee since July. taxiing to runway, engines racing, and… here we go….

No on 4 October 23, 2008

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Here’s my new angle on why we should not restrict women’s access to safe, legal abortion facilities, whether it’s Prop 4 or overturning Roe v. Wade, etc.

Guess what? It puts the government — some bureaucrat in Washington — between a patient and her doctor. A doctor and a patient may agree on a medical procedure, but they cannot perform that procedure because some bureaucrat in Washington won’t permit it.

Conservatives and Libertarians are supposed to not like that sort of thing, right?

voted early. I wonder what cou… October 16, 2008

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voted early. I wonder what could happen in the next 2 and a half weeks that could possibly make me change my mind?

One small political comment October 10, 2008

Posted by admin in : End Of The World, Irrelevant, Political/Editorial , add a comment

As ever, I have little to contribute to the current political discussion since other people who care more and are better skilled have already got it covered.

But this is one observation I’d like to make:

McCain/Palin attacks on Obama just make them look worse. Not because it’s so obviously desperate mean-spirited and cynical. Even if you believe every word they say about Obama, it makes McCain/Palin look worse. They are running against a liberal, secret Muslim opponent named Barack Hussein Obama who pals around with terrorists and would gladly give a platform to our worst enemies.

And they still can’t beat him.

People must really not want you to be the president if they’d rather have a Muslim terrorist president instead.