War is Over, and an Eclipse Reminder

This is a twofer. A combo post. First off, don't miss tomorrow night's LUNAR ECLIPSE (Wednesday, February 20)!!!! 'Cause I probably will, since it's supposed to snow here.

Now, part two:

If you care about this sort of thing, you probably already know about it. But I'm gonna repeat it anyway.

As I tore into the parking lot at work today, a few minutes shy of being late, I heard a teaser on NPR news during "Morning Edition": "Toshiba waves the white flag!" I knew what that meant, but I wanted to be sure.

Yes, the news confirmed my suspicion: Toshiba had officially announced its capitulation in the High-Definition DVD format war. In case you're not up with the latest technology, here's a brief recap of what's been going on these last few years: There are (or were) two competing technologies vying to succeed DVD as the physical format for home entertainment. Both had vague and deceptive names: HD-DVD was the format proposed by Toshiba and backed by a small group of content owners and manufacturers, while Blu-Ray was the format owned and promoted by Sony and backed by a larger group - many of whose members were actually playing on both sides.

Physically, HD and Blu-Ray (or BD, as its officially abbreviated) look very similar to each other and to standard DVDs and CDs. Both HD and Blu-Ray were high-definition formats optimized for high-definition televisions, and both use a blue-light laser for playback. Technically the two are quite different, and the discs are incompatible with each other's player, though both types of player can play old-school DVDs.

Many people will tell you why one format or the other is technically superior to the other. Both are superior in image and sound quality to standard-definition DVDs, though not by as much as some of the demos I have seen in stores would lead you to believe, which used "dumbed down" DVD images to prove the inferiority of standard-definition DVDs. (Nothing that I ever did the bit budget for, and nothing that our department compressed, could ever possibly look that crappy!) Still, many standard-definition DVDs do not make the transition to HDTV very well. Images that look sharp and crisp on your standard-definition TV can look blocky and blurry on a seven-foot-wide HDTV, though few people who are not videophiles or who have never worked in a DVD Authoring facility would ever notice. (How bad is the image? About as bad as satellite TV. What, you don't have a problem with the picture quality of satellite TV? Well, there you go.)

I am told that that was one of the strengths of the HD-DVD player: it did an excellent job upconverting standard DVDs to something resembling HD resolution. So those people who invested in HD-DVD players aren't completely screwed. Actually, once the prices have dropped, it might not be a bad idea to pick one up as a back-up DVD player...

There are those who say that this is all academic, that round shiny things are dinosaurs, and downloads are the way to go, and the way the public will go. To this I say: not yet. Downloaded video is to a high-definition DVD image played on a high-definition screen on a properly-connected player something like watching a fifth-generation bootleg of a summer blockbuster vs. seeing the real thing in a theater. Or watching a YouTube video of a TV program instead of watching the actual TV program. Or listening to an mp3 instead of a CD. Sure, lots of people do, and can't tell the difference. More power to them. They don't know what they're missing.

But, anyway, HD is out. BD has won. This explains what Tiffany heard about Netflix going to Blu-Ray: it was Blu-Ray instead of HD, not Blu-Ray instead of DVD. Decisions like this one, and the decision by Warner Bros. to release exclusively on BD (leaving HD without its most important ally) that pushed HD over the edge.

Incidentally: I was the first one in my area who knew about this. One of the manger/engineers I told about it came back to me an hour later and said, "Hey, I checked that out, and it's true." To which I replied, "Of course it's true! I heard it on NPR!"

75,000

I received my 75,000th visitor sometime early Sunday morning. I might have been online then, but I forgot to check my SiteMeter. Thank you, whoever you were, and thank you to the other 75,202 visitors who have stopped by as of this writing!

It should be noted that it's been a little more than a year since I received my 30,000th visitor!

Presidents Day: A Lesson Learned

It's no secret that I don't think much of the Current Officeholder, the guy who occupies the Office of the President of the United States of America on those rare occasions when he isn't on vacation. I think he's stupid, incurious, incompetent, dishonest, arrogant, ignorant, irrational, cowardly (except when it comes to putting other people's lives on the line, then he's the "Bring It On!" Cowboy), contemptuous of the opinions of others, contemptuous of the Constitution, and a tool of those who profit from war and conflict - and from America's continued dependency on oil. I think he won the 2000 election by criminal means, and I think he won the 2004 election through a combination of the same tricks that put him in office in 2000 and by playing on the fears of the electorate with a skill (not necessairily his own) that any terrorist would be envious of. I think he is very likely the worst president in the history of the United States, in the august company of fellow Republicans Warren G. Harding and Richard M. Nixon. I could go on, but I won't.

I won't because, instead, I'd like to focus on one thing I admire about him.

(I hope certain people weren't drinking coffee while reading that last sentence.)

What could I possibly admire about this guy, this smug, smirking, chuckling idiot, this Commander-In-Thief? What is there to possibly like about him?

It's his steadfastness. His resoluteness. His unbending refusal to compromise on any issue. It's something that the next Officeholder would be well-advised to study, and emulate.

One of the biggest criticisms of Bill Clinton (or should we start calling him Clinton I? No, that would be very premature) - at least, before it was revealed that "Little Willie" was, in many cases, his "Decider" -was that he was willing to compromise on a lot of issues, even if it meant going against his base. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was a compromise Clinton arrived at to get around the U.S. military's prejudicial ban on homosexuals: homosexuals could serve as long as they never revealed that they were homosexual, and inquiries about their sexuality were officially prohibited. (I do not know if similar restrictions applied to heterosexuals, but given the frequency of incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault in the miltary, I'm gonna say "no.")

Clinton was willing to compromise on this and other issues, and it infuriated his base. It also infuriated his opposition, since they would much rather be dealing with someone who was steadfastly opposed to all of their positions - it makes it much easier to rally the troops. So they found other reasons to hate Clinton, and dug and prodded and pried and prevaricated until they achieved their ultimate goal and found a reason to impeach him - and then failed to remove him from office.

John McCain is learning this lesson. The howls of protests coming from the Neocon/Theocon camp are in part due to McCain's history of showing a willingness to work with people from the other side of the aisle. Bipartisanship is not considered a virtue on the far Right. I heard a quote from a Republican strategist a while back who said that the Republicans in Congress would much rather get their way 100% of the time by a 51% majority than ever achieve a compromise with 100% agreement.

Bush's inflexibility was a bit easier to work when his party held a majority in Congress. Back then he and his pet Congress were all singing from the same songbook: they passed the legislation he wanted, and he would sign it, and they would all get pats on the head and belly rubs. But that changed in November 2006, when the Republicans lost control of Congress. (Well, technically, January 1, 2007, when the new Democratic majority took office.) Bush's record of never having vetoed a piece of legislation ended there. From that point on there have been numerous standoffs between Bush and the Congress - standoffs that, too often, Bush has won.

Yes, despite a track record of having been wrong on almost every decision he has made* - including those made prior to his Presidency - Bush's unwavering, uncompromising stance has often carried the day in disputes with Congress. (Prompting SuperG to comment, "It must be mighty hard to be lamer than a lame duck, but alas, Ried and Pelosi seem to pull it off regularly."**)

Ultimately, history will judge George W. Bush, and I think it will judge him quite harshly - perhaps as harshly as it will judge the generation that allowed him to do the things that he has done. But I hope that history will remember him as someone who stuck unwaveringly, unbendingly, uncompromisingly to his positions, even when those positions were clearly, plainly wrong.

It's a lesson that the next President will do well to learn.


*Some will counter with, "Well, the Surge is working." To which I respond: it would have worked better back when Colin Powell proposed it in 2003, when Bush decided to ignore the advice of a Four-Star General in favor of the advice of politician Donald Rumsfeld.
**This was misquoted in my original version: "Prompting some to ask the question, 'What's lamer than a lame duck? Just ask Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi!'".

Free Speech isn't free...it'll cost you $20

...and only then if the local government wants to let you be heard.

I saw this in the Wilkes-Barre Citizen's Voice the other day: City set to establish permit fee for protests. I know a lot of other places have requirements for permits and fees for things like this, and frankly, I was surprised that Wilkes-Barre didn't already have such an ordinance in place.

Sure, it doesn't sound right. Is it Unconstitutional? Well, the Constitution only states

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It doesn't say anything about what the Wilkes-Barre City Council can and cannot do.

And, sadly, there's a lot of precedent for Wilkes-Barre to rest on. According to a comment from local activist Tim Grier on Big Dan's Big Blog, this ordinance is based on one that has been on the books in Philadelphia - and, as Tim found out in a recent dispute with Luzerne County (where he learned that people who merely reside in a County, but are not members of the Landed Gentry, have fewer rights than those folks who are), precedent is 99/100ths of the law. Remember the "Free Speech Zones" in New York City during the 2004 conventions - basically concentration camps where protestors could speak their minds in fenced-in areas well out of earshot of anyone they were trying to protest against, or wanted to be heard by? That's where ordinances like this lead.

These ordinances exist for several reasons. They provide a way to restrict and regulate who says what, and when and where they say it. They provide a legal basis for silencing those who refuse to comply. And they provide revenue, $20 at a time.

I wonder if the local governments of Selma or Montgomery, Alabama would have granted a permit to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? As Tim points out, "While they say they 'won't deny anyone a permit,' there are more than thirty reasons listed in the ordinance that enables them to do just that."

If you live in the City of Wilkes-Barre - well, now is the time to speak up about this. Before you have to cough up $20 to do so, if someone decides to allow you that right.

Last time I looked, honey, I was living in the United States of America, not the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This whole friggin' country is a Free Speech Zone, and a lot of folks fought and died to make it that way. If you don't like it, go to Russia. Just don't let Uncle Vladimir serve you tea.

Thanks to Gort for the prodding, and Big Dan for the heavy lifting, and Tim Grier and Walter Griffith for making an issue of this when other people might have just shrugged and said "Eh, whaddya gonna go?"

Total Lunar Eclipse, Wednesday, February 20!

Don't miss this if you can help it! The last Total Lunar Eclipse visible from the United States until December of 2010 will take place on the evening of Wednesday, February 20! *

As this image* (taken from the official NASA page for this event) shows, the eclipse will be fully visible for most of the Western Hemisphere, and at least partially visible for everywhere but Australia, New Zealand, Eastern Russia, and most of Asia, including many of the islands of the Pacific.

For me, located snugly in the Eastern Time Zone, the Partial phase of the eclipse (when the Moon begins to move into the outer portion of the Earth's shadow, which exists because the Sun is an extended body in space, not a point source of light) will begin at 8:43 PM on the evening of Wednesday, February 20th. Totality (when the Moon moves entirely into the darker, inner portion of the Earth's shadow) will begin at 10:01 PM and end at 10:51 PM, with mid-eclipse at 10:26 PM. The Partial phase will end at 12:09 AM on the morning of Thursday, February 21st.

Those of you in other time zones can adjust the above numbers accordingly, or just check out the handy (but difficult to copy-and-paste!) table at NASA's page for this eclipse. Anyone in Europe hoping to catch a glimpse should remember that the eclipse will happen entirely after midnight, your time, so for you this will actually be a Thursday morning event.**

Things to watch out for:

The shadowed parts of the Moon are often much brighter at Totality than during the Partial phases! This is because the Earth has an atmosphere, and some of the sunlight that is blocked by the Earth (which appears much larger than the Sun in the Moon's sky)*** manages to sneak around the Earth by means of refraction through the atmosphere. From the Moon, the Earth would appear at Totality to suddenly be surrounded by a brightly glowing ring as the atmospere lights up - as many authors have put it, the Moon at Totality is lit up by the glow of every sunrise and sunset happening everywhere on Earth at that moment. But different atmospheric conditions of clouds, smoke, and volcanic dust cause the color of the Moon at Totality to vary from one eclipse to the next!

You can use a series of lunar eclipse observations to deduce that the Earth is a sphere! Notice that the edge of the Earth's shadow is round, regardless of how long ago the Sun set. That wouldn't happen if the Earth was flat - someone seeing the eclipse at sunrise or sunset would be seeing it through the "edge" of the flat Earth's shadow, which would appear like a line . The only shape that would always cast a round shadow is a sphere - or, at least, something sphere-like. In reality, Earth is an "oblate spheroid", slightly flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator.

Also, check out the stars around the Moon! That's something you don't see every day!...err, night. During one total eclipse many years ago, I was astonished by the sense of the three-dimensionality of the Moon, hanging like a purplish grapefruit against the distant stars.

...a very distant purplish grapefruit. How big do you think the Moon appears? The size of a dinner plate? A half-dollar? Grab a pencil with an eraser and hold it out at arm's length in front of the Moon. How do they compare?

Let's hope the weather cooperates, and we all have clear skies for viewing this amazing event! If you get pictures of it, let me know and I'll link to them!

*Yes, I know the image says "2008 Feb 21". They're using Coordinated Universal Time, which is the same as Greenwich Mean Time for our purposes. This event takes place in the early morning hours of Feb. 21, as far as Coordinated Universal Time is concerned.

**The Greenwich Mean Time figures are:
Partial phase begins 01:43 AM GMT
Totality begins 03:01 AM GMT
Mid-Totality 03:26 AM GMT
Totality ends 03:51 GMT
Partial phase ends 05:09 AM GMT

***The fact that the Moon and the Sun appear the same size in the Earth's sky is a remarkable and temporary coincidence - the Moon's orbit is gradually getting bigger, and in time it will be smaller than the Sun in Earth's sky, making Total Solar Eclipses a thing of the past.

I ate too much cheap post-Valentine's Day candy

I stopped at Rite Aid (a chain drugstore, or "pharmacy", or "chemist's", depending on what part of the world you're from) on the way home from work to check out the discount Valentine's Day candy and I was not disappointed. A lot of chocolate was there to be had at half price. Good stuff, too. Maybe, just maybe, it was chocolate rich in iron, which will help me with my attempted blood donation tomorrow.

While trying to not look too much like a chocolate hyena, I strolled the aisles browsing through the non-candy items on display. I wound up getting a battery-operated screwdriver for $5.99 (I've actually been looking for one for a few weeks; they're great when you're working on assembling stuff that has dozens of screws) and a half-price MAD Magazine 2008 calendar - this was the first and only place I've seen these, and I don't think I've seen them anywhere since 2005 or 2006. I had to hold myself back from getting the Vivitar 7x50 binoculars for $9.99 - I have several pairs of binoculars, and I don't need another just yet.

Though you might want to get yourself some binoculars for next Wednesday (February 20, 2008)'s Total Lunar Eclipse visible from (almost) the entire Western Hemisphere!!! More details to follow as the date approaches!

A Valentine's Day message

A year ago tonight, I was holed up in my house across town, cold and sore and tired from digging out one house, walking across town in the snow carrying a jug full of calcium chloride pellets, and then digging out another house.

This year we had a baby-sized variation on the theme: quite a lot of light, fluffy snow, followed by freezing rain - followed, unfortunately, by another good, solid freeze. (Eerily, this Winter's weather is following November's long-range forecast pretty closely.) So both yesterday morning and this morning I had to dump a lot more of my ice melt onto two sets of sidewalks. Four, actually, because I also salted the sidewalks of my elderly neighbors on either side of my house across town.

Driving across town this morning before I headed out to work was interesting. About two blocks before my house there is a STOP sign at an intersection where cross traffic does not have a STOP sign. As I approached this intersection I noticed three things:

1. The road was a sheet of ice. Literally. Very shiny and smooth ice, too.
2. There was no traffic coming from the cross-street.
3. There was an inconveniently-placed fireplug on the other side of the street.

As I began to brake, I realized there was no way in hell I was going to come to a stop. Furthermore, I would very likely lose control of my car if I continued to brake and would almost certainly crash into the fireplug, which would then entomb me in ice. Not wanting to wake up in a future world far beyond my comprehension, I decided that just this once it would be OK to sail through a STOP sign. Which I did.

I survived the trip, and salted half a block's worth of sidewalks. I had to rush a bit to make it to work on time.

Tonight I was smart. I salted everything as soon as I got back from work. I doubt it was necessary, but at least I wont have to worry about surprise sheets of ice in the morning!

Image genenerated using the Hahaform at hetemeel.com.
...and I forgot to add:
Link courtesy of http://www.mhryvnak.net/blog/!

For Valentine's Day: Kayleigh by Marillion

For Christmas 1985, my sister aked for the cassette of Marillion's Misplaced Childhood. This was years before any of us would have a CD player, but even back then record albums were so old-fashioned. I think my brother and I got it for her together, and once we heard it, we made copies of it for ourselves.

Marillion was - is - a band that falls into several categories: "Progressive Rock", "Art Rock", even "Pomp Rock." Watching their videos on YouTube I was a little shocked to see that they also fell into the category of "Hair Band" - for some reason I thought lead singer Fish was already balding back then. (Judging from his brushed-forward hairstyle, it seems likely that he actually was.)

Here's their most popular song, and one that really meant a lot to me back then as I was dealing with assorted heartbreaks. I guess it still does. Heck, I used to sing it to myself just a few years ago as Haley and I would walk along Main Street in Nanticoke in the early morning hours. It's called "Kayleigh."


But this isn't my favorite Marillion song. That would be the song in the second half of this video, starting at 3:53. It's part III of a song cycle from Misplaced Childhood called the "Bitter Suite", and it's apparently called "Blue Angel":

(While this is supposed to be a "Live" performance, the audio is directly from the album, and they just appear to be miming along to it.)

The sky was Bible black in Lyon when I met the Magdalene
She was paralyzed in a streetlight, she refused to give her name

And a ring of violet bruises, they were pinned upon her arm
Two hundred francs for sanctuary and she led me by the hand

to a room of dancing shadows where all the heartache disappears
And from glowing tongues of candles I heard her whisper in my ear,
'J'entend ton coeur',
'J'entend ton coeur',

I can hear your heart, I can hear your heart,
I can hear your heart.

...but but but, I also really like this song, which I believe directly follows "Kayleigh" on the album. Just as happy and upbeat as the others: "Lavender."


Misplaced Childhood is my first and last exposure to an album by Marillion. I've heard the occasional solo stuff by now former lead singer Fish (not to be confused with Phish, or with Fish), and I think I've even heard some stuff by Marillion from their post-Fish era. But I've never listened to Fugazi, or any other album by the band. Maybe someday.

Oh hell. That's not the end of the story. Or the end of the album. There's no video to this song, which ends the Misplaced Childhood album on an upbeat, redemptive note. It's a song about picking up and getting on:

For she's got to carry on with her life,
And you've got to carry on with yours

"Childhood's End", by Marillion.

(It kinda cuts out abruptly. Sorry about that.)

So there. Happy Valentine's Day.

Your attention please: IT'S SNOWING!

Just because some people seem not to have noticed...

Attention state and local officials: IT'S SNOWING!

Yes, it's snowing. In fact, it's still snowing right now. But you know what? People still have to get home from work. So, rather than waiting until it stops snowing to send out the snowplows, maybe you could clear the roads for the working stiffs who would very much like to make it home alive and in one piece? Oh, and be a dear and make sure they're clear in the morning - keeping in mind some people have to start work at 6:00. Thanks a bunch. Have some taxes.

Attention truckers: IT'S SNOWING!

Maybe you didn't take Physics in school, but I'm sure you've learned a few things in your time on the road. Like the fact that it takes a certain amount of distance to stop a moving vehicle. Like the fact that your brakes don't work on snow-covered highways nearly as well as they do on dry pavement. Like the fact that during a snowstorm highways may be full of the sort of things that may cause smaller vehicles to stop suddenly. Like the fact that these smaller vehicles have a much shorter stopping distance than you do.

In other words: five feet is not a safe following distance in any conditions, especially not at highway speeds, particularly especially not when the roads are covered with snow. So back it the hell up, before you kill more people. OK?

Attention SUV drivers: IT'S SNOWING!

You know, it still doesn't feel like Winter to me, because I haven't seen one of you on your roof yet. But you know what's almost as bad as SUV drivers who think they are invincible and drive like maniacs regardless of road conditions? SUV drivers who drive at 5 miles per hour on the highway because there's some snow on the road! Hellooooo! We can go a little bit faster than that, you know!

Attention me: IT'S SNOWING!
So get the hell off the computer and start clearing some sidewalks!

A bad deal for the future of DVDs?

So it looks like the Writers' Strike is all over but for the voting. The deal sounds less than ideal, but many working writers seem to be in favor of it.

One thing that does not bode well for the future of my industry - DVD Manufacturing - is the fact that the writers did not get an enhanced piece of the DVD revenue pie. Essentially, it sounds like that was a concession that was made in order to get more in the way of download revenue and access to future media.

For a lot of people, television is as much a part of life as the flesh-and-blood workaday world, or even - and I find this hard to believe - the online world. Friends aren't just a bunch of inexplicably well-off twentysomethings living together is some incredibly expensive New York real estate; to a lot of people, these are their friends, people they have over in their living rooms five nights a week. They hang with Will and Grace, sleuth along with the kids at CSI, laugh and cry with the Gilmore Girls.*

For many people television establishes normative behaviors. What you see on TV - well, that's what people do, 'cause you just saw them do it. Hairstyles, music, catchphrases, attitudes, modes of behavior - maybe it's not exactly a case of monkey see, monkey do, but it's pretty close. Over time, the behaviors of viewers begin to ape the behaviors of people on TV.

And this isn't always a bad thing. I've known people who were raised without exposure to television, and they...well, to put it politely, they missed out on some of the socially normative aspects of television. It wasn't like they were from another planet, but certain behaviors that we take for granted from being exposed to them on television were never developed in these people. On some level, they almost suffered from a lack of empathy. (Strange to think of empathy as being taught to us by the idiot box; this is essentially a reversal of a situation described by Philip K. Dick in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?...or was this sequence only in the movie version, Blade Runner?)

To summarize: by being able to establish the normative behaviors that influence TV viewers, television writers wield enormous power.

So what am I getting at? That writers can shape society for the better by showing more characters who behave according to a moral or ethical code that benefits both the individual and society? That the TV world can do with a few more Cliff Huxtables and a lot fewer sociopathic serial killers? That TV writers have an awesome responsibility, and should be afforded a lot more respect - and money - than this deal grants them?

Naaaah. What I'm getting at is my concern that, from this day forward, you will never again see a TV character purchase or rent a DVD. (I have no idea how often you see that nowadays, but work with me here.) From now on TV characters will seek out their entertainment online, from sites similar to - or perhaps identical to - the ones which in the real world will actually generate some revenue for the writers. After all, why should TV writers promote a medium like DVDs which pays the writers almost no dividend at all?

And if this is so, it will be a very bad development for the DVD world. And a very unfortunate development brought un us by corporate greed and short-sightedness. A decision ever-so-slightly in another direction could have paid huge dividends in terms of increased DVD sales and rentals. With this deal, who can say what will happen?

*You can tell I'm keeping up with what's currently on television, right?

Is the end in sight for the Writers' Strike?

I don't watch much TV. Still, I get a little irked when I hear other people who don't watch TV snobbishly say, "Well, who cares that the writers are out on strike?" On the other hand, I was more than a little frightened when I found myself in a very slow-moving lane in Wal-Mart a few weeks ago and began paging through that week's issue of TV Guide. There was a page filled with letters to the editor about the strike, and one seemed to capture the mood of many of the others. It said something along the lines of "Our brave soldiers are off risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they aren't going out on strike! The government should force the writers to go back to work!"

Ummmmm...

The strike, in case you haven't been paying attention, is about a lot of things, including compensation to writers for internet, DVD, and other (perhaps as-yet undeveloped) mediums. During the last writers' strike, the home video market was still in its fledgling stages, and the union essentially bargained away fair compensation from home video sales as a concession for other items that they valued more highly. By the time 2007 rolled around, it was quite clear that this concession had been a grave error, and the union was eager to make sure it had these bases covered this time around. The studios, naturally, see things otherwise.

So how will this strike end? Will the folks with all the talent and none of the money be forced to bargain away everything of value? Will the side with all of the money and none of the creative talent decide to treat the writers fairly, realizing that any concessions made now will pay huge dividends in the future?

I dunno. We'll have to see in the postgame analysis. As of this posting there is an offer on the table, and the union leadership is recommending that the rank-and-file vote to accept it, and call off all active picketing until the votes have been cast and counted. So, soon, all of you TV watchers will be able to look forward to new episodes of your favorite TV shows. In the meantime, you can follow the latest developments at the United Hollywood blog. I'll also be keeping up with the story over on Adam Felber's Fanatical Apathy. I hope everything works out for the best!

Another award, courtesy of Whim

It's been the better part of a week since Whim chose me as one of the five people to be awarded "The Spreader of Love" Award from her site. I am supposed to pass it along, in turn, to five other bloggers. And...well...I'm stuck.

One blogger who comes to mind immediately whenever I think of such a thing is Ashley at Ink On Paper. Ashley is one of the most selfless people I know, willing to put the happiness and well-being of family, friends, and even total strangers ahead of her own. If that doesn't result in love being spread - well, it's certainly not for lack of trying.

Lauren (whose current blog as of this posting is Things I Carry, a.k.a. Memoir) is all about the love. People, dogs, fish, customers, love flies everywhere over at her blog!

Debra Pasquella's Let Me Go On And On! looks at love, and life, and relationships, and spirituality from a more serious, almost professional point of view.

An odd site to cite for spreading love is Josh's The Comics Curmudgeon. This is a site whose core consits of snarky comments about the day's comic strips. But somewhere along the way The Comics Curmudgeon rekindled a love for the comics in a lot of readers and commentors, as best seen in the post announcing the passing of They'll Do It Every Time artist and writer Al Scaduto.

The fifth blog...well, this is the toughest. In the end, considering what I'm going to post next, I thought I might just cite YouTube, for helping to connect people with the songs that mean so much to them, in a manner that benefits both the viewer and, indirectly, the artist - far more than a music download site would. So instead, I'll award it to the blog that first got me interested in YouTube: Michael Plank's Content.

Now, let's make with the love:

Some artists and labels are more restrictive about posting (or more active about removing) videos on YouTube. Looks like Barenaked Ladies is one of those, because I can't find a posting of their video of their cover of Bruce Cockburn's "Lovers In a Dangerous Time" anywhere. Here's a live version, from their Barelaked Nadies DVD:



Here is Bruce Cockburn's original. The lip synch is awful, and Bruce looks verrrry yuppie-ish - this was 1984, after all. But it's all in stark contrast to the story of the song.
This song is brilliant, and pure poetry, but I - forgive me - prefer the BNL version. In Bruce Cockburn's voice, I prefer "If I Had A Rocket Launcher", from the same album, inspired by the same situations.

UPDATE, 10/28/08: Here is the BNL Version.



I heard this song while getting an oil change today. Lee Ann Womack, "I Hope You Dance":

I had to turn my head so the other people in the waiting room couldn't see me mouthing the words...

Time
is a wheel in constant motion, always
rolling us along

Tell me
who
wants to look back on their years
and wonder
where those years have gone?

...and to keep them from seeing how shiny my eyes had gotten all of a sudden.

That's it for now. I hope you dance. And kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight.

Dreaming of a Mad World

More music videos, 'cause I'm lazy and it's Friday.

Last week I spoke of my pre-adolescent love for Blondie, or more specifically for lead singer Debbie Harry. "Die Young, Stay Pretty" is far from my favorite song of theirs. "Dreaming" very well may be.

I think every band, regardless of genre, can cover this song. It's cool and timeless. Even the New Wave getups in the video somehow seem less anachronistic than in other videos from this era, and Debbie Harry has never looked more pornstar gorgeous.

One song that I can't imagine any band trying to cover is "Birthday" by The Sugarcubes. I first became aware of The Sugarcubes through a concert I accidentally taped on MTV in early 1989 while trying to record The Young Ones. This was the song that caught my attention and made me notice the odd little lead singer who went by the name of Bjork.

(WARNING: Some non-pornographic non-explicit nudity is shown in this video, because Iceland - like most of the rest of the world - is well beyond the body shame that plagues us backwards, primitive, unsophisticated Americans. Deal with it, or don't watch it until you've evolved into something more enlightened.)

This song often leaves me curled in the fetal position, covered with goosebumps. Very dangerous when played while driving.

Another song that's dangerous to play while driving, for entirely different reasons, is "Winter" from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. After about 35 seconds in, just try to drive under the speed limit.

Like so many other classical* musicians, this guy was a freaking rock star centuries before Elvis. No wonder this song is used in countless commercials.

Another Vivaldi bit that I love is the Second Movement of the Guitar Concerto in D-Major. I only know what it is because I heard it on a classical radio station months ago and listened until they back-announced the title. Up until then I knew this as "that song they played on Sesame Street while showing time lapse photography of a flower opening."

(No, that's not Doc from The Love Boat.) This song was also used, I believe, in a haunting 1978 TV-movie called "The Bermuda Depths" which involved a possibly supernatural giant sea turtle and a mysterious woman named Jenny Haniver. **

Finally I bring you full circle, to a cover of a New Wave song by Tears for Fears. Gary Jules doing "Mad World" from Donnie Darko:

I woke up one Saturday morning a few years ago, turned on MTV, saw this video, and thought "There's hope for this channel yet."

I may have been wrong. But, still, it's a great song, and a great video.


*Technically, Paganini came after the "Classical" period, and Vivaldi came before it. Bite me.

**Interesting note from the Wikipedia entry on this movie:

It seems to have affected a mass of young children, people who were aged 7-14 in 1978 in some kind of hypnotic, "mass dream" way. So many people recall their surreal and dream-like memory of the movie. It has been suggested that this was the effect of the Vivaldi score, or the ocean scenes, or the haunting subject matter of the film.

I was 10 when I saw it...

P.S. Unsurprisingly, The Bermuda Depths can be found in nine 10-minute chunks on YouTube.

Win a date with d.b. echo!

Ashley and Tiffany both live in Michigan and are mighty excited about going to see the farewell tour of RENT in Grand Rapids on March 5. I've never seen RENT, but I've always sorta kinda been RENT-curious. My curiosity was further aroused yesterday while I was making a meatless Ash Wednesday dinner (vegetarian chili, which really came out a lot more like salsa with two types of beans) when a commercial came on during the local 5:30 news about RENT coming to Scranton in a few weeks.

After I got my dirt yesterday I came back home and did some searching on the computer. And, yep, there it was: the last stop on the RENT tour before Grand Rapids, Michigan is the Scranton Cultural Center on February 22 through 24!

So, now comes the big problem. Go it alone, or find someone to go with?

My sister is a big RENT fan, but she doesn't feel like making the 150+ mile trek up here to see it. I can't imagine many of my friends around here would be that interested in going. And the people I know online who I know would be interested in going to see it...well, they live in Michigan, and are going to see it in Grand Rapids.

So here's the deal: if you live in this area and are interested in going to see RENT with me, let me know! Not that I'm gonna buy you tickets or anything, but maybe you can score a ride in my rattling deathtrap 1996 Toyota Tercel with 283,000 "official" miles on it (as of today!) And who knows, play your cards right and you might find yourself having coffee or maybe even dinner with yr. hmbl. blogger himself! Be prepared for fascinating dinner conversation like "Oh, crap, did I just get that all over my sweater?" and "You'd think they'd give you more napkins, for the prices they charge here!" and "So...anyway...what was I saying?"

Yessir, if this works out, maybe I'll work my whole calendar of social activities through my blog. Now that I have a normal working schedule, for the first time in a long time!

If you're interested, you can always contact me at my hotmail address, databoy142. Or just leave a comment!

Ash Wednesday

There are few sights creepier than an evening church service filled with the weatherbeaten and bedraggled descendants of coal miners all with black spots of ash on their foreheads. I kept on thinking I was in a zombie movie. The lightning that kept lighting up the stained-glass windows didn't help shake this feeling.

Party in Heaven on Fat Super Tuesday

It's Super Tuesday, which means almost nothing to me because Pennsylvania doesn't hold its Primary for a while yet. I say "almost nothing" rather than "nothing" because this year there is a teeny-weenie little chance that Pennsylvania's Primary may actually count for something. Not very likely, but still...

I just wish the Democratic field hadn't been whittled down to two candidates already. Whichever one wins the nomination - and that's not going to be determined tonight - I will gladly support them.

Meanwhile, on the Republican end of things, you've got Romney - no - and Huckabee - no. Then you have John McCain, a guy who the Republican Collective Wisdom determined four* eight years ago was inferior to George W. Bush. And the current thinking on that side of the divide is that Bush is really and truly a bad President, one whom the potential nominees can't seem to distance themselves from enough. Do you really want someone who was determined to be inferior to Bush to try to take over from Bush?

(Whoever takes the oath on November* January 21, 2009 will be inheriting a lot of scorched earth, courtesy of the present officeholder. Best wishes, whoever you will be. The future of our great nation will rest on your back. No pressure there.)

Meanwhile, for the 40th consecutive year I am not in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, throwing necklaces of beads to lovely young ladies in exchange for flashes of their boobies. Though I think all that stopped being as much fun as it used to be a few years ago. How's that federally-funded recovery coming along?

I have to come up with a meatless lunch for tomorrow. Maybe grilled cheese and an apple. I'm already planning vegetarian chili (possibly with lentils as a meat substitute) for dinner tomorrow.

I think I just nearly died of a Skittles overdose. Taste a rainbow...of death! But I'm all better now.

Courtesy of Camilla in Norway is this Norwegian parody video: Bye & Rønning's "Party in Heaven." It stands alone as a pretty funny song, or as a parody of an Eric Clapton ballad, but it's actually a parody of a guy called Scooter, who...well, imagine if Eminem was into hardcore poser trance/techno, and you sort of have the idea.


I must be strong, and party on...

*...aaaaaand the Senior Moments continue.

The Golden Age

A lot of Republicans talk about the return of a Clinton to the White House as the most disastrous thing that can befall this country. Others publicly express the fervent hope that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for President, because they see her as a potentially unifying force for the Republican party, whose members might set aside their differences and their varying claims of being the true Conservatives or legitimate heirs to the Reagan legacy and unite to prevent the hated wife of a hatred former President from becoming the next President.

What is their issue, anyway? Let's assume for a moment that this isn't simply so much bluster being directed against a Democratic candidate simply for being a Democratic candidate. Their hatred seems to be specifically directed at both Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Were the Clinton years really that bad? Were things worse then than they are today?

Well, in a word: no. In two words, Hell no. Unless you happen to be suckling at the teat of the Military-Industrial Complex - which, as I discovered during last year's job search, provides a hell of a lot of jobs locally in the manufacture of artillery, munitions, armor, and assorted materiel. So, actually, there are quite a few people who fall into that category and may have reason to fear an end to the perpetual state of war that is the legacy of George W. Bush and the promise of almost all of his party's potential nominees.

The economy was fantastically better back in Clinton's days. Gas prices were a fraction of what they are today, languishing below $1 a gallon for a longish while. We were not in a state of constant warfare, with National Guard troops mobilized and pulled away from the Nation they were supposed to be Guarding. You could even say we were experiencing an era of peace and prosperity, of hope and unlimited potential.

Peace does not mean the absence of war, nor does it mean the absence of attacks against us. Under Clinton, the United States participated in a NATO bombing campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And the United States and its forces were the targets of terrorist attacks: On February 26, 1993, a little more than a month after Bill Clinton had taken the oath of office for the first time, a bomb was detonated in the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring many others. On June 25, 1996, nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed in the Khobar Towers bombing. On August 7, 1998, hundreds were killed in coordinated, simultaneous bombings at two U.S. embassies in Africa. On October 12, 2000, the U.S.S. Cole was attacked, killing seventeen sailors. Then there was Somalia, and Waco, and Oklahoma City, and Columbine, and...

OK, so not everything was lemonade and ice cream on the "Peace" side of things. When it comes to "Prosperity"...well, naturally, things were not perfect there, either. A lot of people remember the dot-com bust (or "dot-com bubble"), but how many remember the telecom bubble and the biotech bubble? (Required reading for anyone planning to invest: Charles Mackay's classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.) And many people think that the decline of the airlines began with September 11, 2001, but in reality it began somewhat earlier.

But almost everyone was rich...on paper. More than that. The system was set up to be self-sustaining: 401(k) investments fed the stock market a few dollars at a time, and increasing stock values encouraged additional investment. As a friend and I discussed during a night out on the town in Philadelphia in 1997, this mechanism made the stock market seemingly crash-proof; not only would everyone have to pull out their investments to destabilize the market, but they would also have to go through the tedious paperwork of changing their 401(k) allocations. I believe we may have used the words "permanently high plateau"...

Still. The general attitude was one of optimism and hope. Things were looking up, especially for the middle class.

Especially for me.

Sometimes I wonder if my attitudes towards this time are colored by my own experiences - experiences which don't necessarily apply to the rest of the world.

Professionally, for instance. At the start of the Clinton Era I was transitioning from being an Operator in the CD Plating department of Specialty Records to being one of two SPC Coordinators for all of Pre-Production. By the end of those years I was deeply into being the DVD Asset Manager for Warner Advanced Media Operations (WAMO) at their Compression, Encoding, and Authoring center - one of the finest DVD Authoring Studios at that time. During those years CDs peaked, and DVDs were rapidly ascendant. And why not? With the economy doing so well, everyone could afford a DVD player.

Personally - well, it wasn't all great. Both my Grandmother and my Father had strokes. My dog Kitty died. The engine in my car seized up and I had to buy a new car. My Grandmother died. A few friends' marriages fell apart. But other friends got married, and things have worked out for them. New animals came into my life. And through a program of diet and exercise I lost a lot of weight, for a little while (1997 - 2001) at least. I traveled a lot, including several trips to Florida.

Music-wise - well, some people are going to tell you that the best music came out of the 1960's, or the 1970's, or even the 1980's. For me, the 1990's were the best years for music. Alternative and techno and dance were the soundtrack of my life, the stuff that played in my car and at the bars and clubs and concerts I went to. But Alternative music became mainstream, and eventually collapsed on itself. And I relinquished the bars and clubs and concerts to a younger generation.

It wasn't a perfect time. Clinton was far from perfect, and he will be remembered for his faults as much as anything. And he was beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyrrany of evil men - or at least a Congress hell-bent on removing him from office, at any cost. Which, ultimately, they failed to do.

Was it a Golden Age? It was for me. Was it for the rest of the nation? The rest of the world? I don't know. History will decide, but its decision will be based in part on the accounts we leave.

In the end I think the Clinton Era sowed the seeds of its own undoing. When Al Gore ran against George W. Bush in 2000, the record of success of his former running-mate should have easily propelled him into the White House for a thematically and philosophically continuous term. But the electorate had grown fat and happy; and, sated as they were, they began to wonder if maybe things could be even better if they tried something else, if they voted for the candidate who was promising tax cuts and tax rebates for all. And so a great many Undecideds went into the voting booth in November 2000 and brought Gore's margin of victory to within the limits of measurement. And then five political appointees decided to end that measurement and grant the victory to George W. Bush.

Was it a Golden Age? I think so. It was a damn sight better than what we've endured for the past seven years. What we will have to endure for another ten months and seventeen days.

And then, perhaps, a new Golden Age will be upon us.

Maybe.

Coming up...

I'm tired. I'm doing an awful lot of gear shifting here, and the Great Machine is groaning in protest.

See, tomorrow is the day I start my Monday-through-Friday, 8:00 to 4:30, eight-and-a-half hours a day schedule. I've already reset my alarms for 5:00 instead of 3:00. But yesterday was my last day of my 4-days-on-4-days-off, 6:00 to 6:00, twelve hours a day schedule. Meaning that instead of having four days off like a good little 4x4 employee should, or two days off like much of the rest of the world, I've got just one day off this weekend. Today. And I was actually supposed to be working today - it would have been the last day of my 4x4 rotation. But the powers-that-be decided that maybe I shouldn't work nine consecutive days on two different schedules.

So, like I said, I'm tired today. Instead of writing an actual post, I'll give you little previews of some posts I'm working on:*

The Golden Age: A lot of Republicans talk about the return of a Clinton to the White House as the most disastrous thing that can befall this country. As I recall, the Clinton years (January 21, 1993 - January 21, 2001) were some of the best years in recent American history - well, hell, all of American history. Let's just say history, period. Or was that just me? A personal reflection on the Clinton years and what made them great - for me, at least.

Contact Memory: If you've read my introductory post, you know I have synethesia (a smidgen) and prospagnosia prosopagnosia (a touch). These are both little brain-wiring issues that are pretty well-known and not very rare. But I also have one thing - ability, superpower, whatever - that I've never heard or read about before. It's a blessing and a curse, and part of the answer to the question "Why don't you just throw that crap out?"

Materialist: Related to the previous post, a further exploration of my relationship with material objects - and what happens when they are lost or destroyed. Brought on by a revelation today that a 41-year-old collector's item book that I was never allowed to even touch as a child has recently been used as a source of material for a school project. Literally.

A Rock Too Heavy To Lift: An exploration of the question, "What was the point of Jesus, anyway?" Or, more precisely, "Why did one crucifixion matter so much in a time when crucifixions were relatively common?" Also explores God's neuroses, and the meaning of the story of Adam and Eve. (This is a post I've been kicking around for a couple of years.)

When will I get to these? I don't know. I planned on writing The Golden Age this weekend, but I've just run out of steam.

Maybe tomorrow.


*...what? Don't look at me like that. Doesn't every blogger plan out posts days or weeks or months or even years ahead of time?

Another Hallowhog over...

...a new one just eight nine* months away.

Yes, it seems like only a third quarter* of a year ago that Hallowhog began. But what an arbitrary four three*-month cluster of holidays beginning and ending with non-moveable feasts it's been! Britney acting increasingly insane...the first almost-real Presidential primary (on both the Democratic and Republican tickets!) in decades...and Heath Ledger, Brad Renfro, Bobby Fischer, Christian Brando, Benazir Bhutto, Margaret Truman, former Indonesian President Suharto, Suzanne Pleshette, Edmund Hillary, Oscar Peterson, Ike Turner, Evel Knievel, Dick "Mr. Whipple" Wilson, Dan Fogelberg, Lee Vincent, Al Scaduto, and Norman Mailer, among others, all shuffling off the mortal coil.

On top of all that, I have no idea if the groundhog saw his shadow today or not. Stupid groundhog.

Video clip time. This is a mean one, dedicated to all the young rising stars who are having a hard time keeping their heads screwed on. It's a video I first saw on a syndicated late-night video program that featured videos from a single artist - locally, this was late on either Saturday or Sunday night. (This was before my family had MTV.)

This video blew my mind when I first saw it. This was back in 1980 or 1981. I was watching the video show because that week it featured videos by the band Blondie, and I was lusting after Debbie Harry - who, ironically, was 36 when this video came out; by most measures of celebrity, she had already missed out on fulfilling the message of the song. I was only familiar with a handful of Blondie songs at the time - "Heart of Glass", "One Way or Another", "Rapture", "Call Me", and "The Tide Is High". The last, with its tin drums and reggae influences, more closely resembled this song than any of the others. But what really freaked me out were the masks, the incoherent backing vocals, and the giant joints that everyone is smoking. Was Blondie a...a...drug band? My 13-year-old mind reeled at the thought. Or were they suggesting that the excesses of life would lead to the title of the song coming true?

So, for all you nihilists out there, here's Debbie Harry and the boys - the one and only Blondie - with "Die Young, Stay Pretty":

(Debbie Harry is still pretty today in her 60's.)

While we're on the subject of death, stop on over at Tiffany's place and hear what William Shatner has to say about it.

*I wonder if the new schedule will keep me from doing things like thinking February 2nd is actually February 29th.

Some thoughts on the new schedule

First, a car update: I ran out of windshield washer fluid on the way home today. Fortunately it was raining at the time, so I didn't really need it. Also fortunately, I had a gallon in my trunk ready for an emergency refill. But I just had my windshield washer refilled when I had my last oil change. How the hell long has it been since then? I was always so dependent on my odometer to tell me when to go in for an oil change, but with the speedometer out of commision, the odometer was also not working for most of January. At my calculated rate of 1000 miles every 17 days, that means I put on at about 1650 miles since the odometer stopped rolling. I may be well overdue for another oil change.

I'm going to miss having four days off at a time. Four twelve-hour days followed by four days off seemed like a pretty good deal, except for the part about working four twelve-hour days. But I always tried to make the most of my four days of, without doing anything that might actually be considered "work" or "looking for a better job."

But I won't miss these hours. Twelve hours of work is exhausting, and you come home too drained to do anything much. And 3:00 in the morning is too damned early to be getting up.

My new job, like my most recent job, is on an hourly schedule. Punch in, punch out. Well, in this modern world, swipe in, swipe out.

In my previous job I was on salary, which meant I could stay as long as I wanted and still get paid the same amount. In the end I was working bizarre hours, a 9:30 to 7:00 shift designed to accomodate customers on the West Coast (cough Californians cough) who would always wait until the end of the day - their day - to start calling us to ask for information or finally answer our time-critical questions. Much of the later part of my day was spent waiting for these last-minute calls. It came as a bit of a surprise to our customers when I changed my schedule and started answering their calls - they had been looking forward to leaving a message, and then getting all huffy the next day about us delaying their projects by not being available when they called.

So many days I would put in nine-and-a-half or ten hour days which consisted mostly of making a lot of phone calls, sending a lot of e-mail messages, and doing a lot of waiting for responses. Well, and a hell of a lot of other stuff, too.

My point is, each day now starting next Monday, after eight-and-a-half hours I will be booted out of the building and into the midafternoon sunshine.

I'm looking forward to that. For as long as it lasts.