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.

Oil crisis

Did I ever mention that I lost my first car due to an absence of oil?

Funny story. I bought my first car, a used gray 1990 Toyota Tercel, back in 1992 so I would have a way of getting to and from work. (33.3 miles is a long way to walk twice each day.) It came with someting like 20,000 miles on it and a short list of easily-fixable problems that I identified within the warranty period.

I quickly began to heap the miles on it. But I got regular maintenance and had regular oil changes at a national chain place, which I never had a problem with despite hearing all sorts of horror stories.

But all good things must come to an end. In early 1996 my little Tercel developed a few problems I wanted to get taken care of. The third brake light, mounted in the rear windshield, had burned out. The rear-view mirror had become loose and was prone to flopping down off of its mounting. The brake pads were worn and needed replacing. Oh, and I was due for an oil change. May as well get that done, too.

I should have suspected trouble in the days following the repair. I noticed almost immediately that the third brake light was still not working. A while later I hit some rumble strips and my rear-view mirror flopped down again. I took my car back to them, indignantly, and demanded that they fix the things they had charged me to fix before. They made the repairs and apologized profusely.

As I drove off I thought What next? Will the brakes fail?

It wasn't the brakes I should have been worried about.

It was a cold day in the week leading up to Easter as I drove in to work. My car is so quiet, I thought happily as I made my commute. Too quiet. I have nearly run over several people who have stepped in front of my car in city traffic because they did not hear it. In the future, when all cars are electric, how many people will be run over because they didn't hear the car coming?

Right on cue, the noise started.

My family owned Volkswagen Beetles when I was a kid. Not the prettied-up approximations that showed up a decade or so ago, with their safety-glass windshieds and seatbelts and front-mounted engines. No, these were rough and ready little German numbers with rear-mounted engines that sounded like lawnmower engines. They made a very distinct clattering roar as they drove along.

My Tercel was suddenly starting to sound like that.

Must be a hole in the muffler, I thought, or maybe the exhaust system's come loose. This annoyed me a bit, since I had just paid a pretty penny to have the exhaust system replaced the previous December after it had fallen apart. The noise got louder as I got to work. I decided I would call the Toyota dealer a few miles from there - not the place I had had the work done, which was closer to my house - and have them look at it.

They were very worried when I described the symptoms. Very worried. "Drive in slow," they said. "And keep the RPMs down." Well, without a tachometer - Tercels are not so equipped - how the hell was I to know my RPMs?

There are two ways to get from where I work to the Toyota place. One involves the highway. The other involves a very steep hill. Under the circumstances, I decided that the highway was the safer bet.

I almost made it. I was about two miles from the Toyota place when the noise, which was now a deafening roar, reached a crescendo. And then several things happened at once.

I heard a noise like a drive shaft snapping, and then a noise like a bunch of pebbles being thrown against the inside of my engine compartment. (Tie rods, I would later learn.) I lost all power and was suddenly coasting on a busy highway with no shoulders.

Oh, and the Oil light came on.

Thanks. A little late for that.

The bottom line: my engine was all out of oil. The noise I had heard was what you hear when theres nothing left to lubricate the pistons and whatnot. The cracking was what happens when you push the drive shaft a little too far. The pebble-ish noise was what it sounds like when your engine tears itself apart from the inside. While the people at the other Toyota dealer were busy not fixing my brake light and not repairing my rear-view mirror, they were also apparently not changing my oil. Or, at least, not putting enough oil in the engine after they drained it.

Lesson learned: always check your oil level. At every fill-up and after every oil change, at least.

But lessons are sometimes forgotten.

Fast-forward twelve years, to a car - a blue 1996 Toyota Tercel - that has been frozen at just over 282,000 miles for nearly a month because of a broken speedometer. The Check Engine light has been glowing orangely for most of that time, presumably as a result of the speedometer issue.

I had an appointment to get my speedometer fixed yesterday. They were also supposed to reset the Check Engine light so we could see if it came on again, but apparently they forgot. The light was still glowing this morning when I started my commute to work. It went out after a few miles.

The Check Engine light had still been glowing on Saturday when I drove in to work. As I pulled up to the last STOP sign before our parking lot I noticed a momentary red flash on my dashboard. After I parked I looked at the darkened dash and tried to figure out which light it had been. Seatbelt?, I wondered. Maybe I tugged on the sensor as I came to a stop at the intersection?

Today the light lit up again momentarily as I was maneuvering into a parking space. The Oil light.

Oh, crap.

Nothing is worse than an Oil light. Nothing. If it comes on, you pull over to the side of the road and stop immediately. You do not keep going to wherever you're going. You do not drive to the nearest convenience store, or even to a better part of town. You stop, immediately. Failure to do so is to risk engine loss and, depending on when and where it happens, death.

But my Oil light had just winked at me. Twice. I went in to work to my new office, wrote the words "CHECK OIL!" on a piece of paper, and stuck it on top of my coat.

At the end of the day I checked my oil. I didn't see any. The dipstick was coming up nearly dry.

I need oil NOW.

I rolled downhill to a convenience store located near the building where my old department used to be housed. I popped my hood, checked my oil again, read my Owner's Manual, and went in to buy the recommended oil. 10W30. Well, they only had 10W40, and I figured better something than nothing. Carfully reaching past the containers of transmission fluid and lighter fluid, I bought two quarts - one for using, and one for a spare.

The engine drank down both quarts. I bought two more for luck. While I was filling the engine, two teenage girls who had parked their car next to mine, apparently to conduct some sort of business transaction with someone in a nearby pickup truck who, while parked, kept his engine running, asked if I needed help. With a container of oil in my left hand, an oily rag in my right, and a flashlight in my mouth, I could only laugh, and then drool slightly around the flashlight. I took the flashlight out of my mouth and explained that the only problem at this point was that I was potentially using the wrong grade of oil. They then warned me that it was possible to add too much oil to an engine, but I already knew this - didn't they see the Owner's Manual flipped open to that page and sitting on top of the acid-encrusted battery terminals? One of the girls then confided that she had recently wrecked her engine doing just that. I thanked the girls profusely for their assistance and advice, but my task was done, and the proof would come in the driving.

I didn't blow my engine on the way home. But I'll get an honest-to-goodness oil change at the first opportunity - which may be Monday afternoon. If the car lasts that long.

So, um, let that be a lesson to you. Check your oil level. You don't want to blow your engine because you ran out of oil!

I think I'll start checking again. After every fill-up, and after every oil change, at least.

The return of the databoy

The "D.B." in my nom de blog, D.B. Echo, comes from a series of jobs I held from 1993 through 1999. I started out as a Statistical Process Control Coordinator, helping to introduce that discipline to our company, and later played various roles in data collection and analysis. At one point I became part of a group of five people drawn from across the plant who were assigned the task of rolling out data collection and analysis throughout the plant. During a brainstorming session to identify potential pitfalls, one member stated the concern that the data collection responsibilities for the entire plant would be placed on our shoulders - that we would become the "databoys and datagirls for the plant."

It never got that bad. But eventually, inevitably, things changed, and data-based decision making was no longer considered as important as it once had been. In time our group of five was whittled down to one. I was the sole remaining databoy.

If you're a regular or long-time reader, you know my more recent work history: how I served as my company's DVD Asset Manager from 1999 through February 27, 2007, and how on that day I lost my job - as did with over a third of my department and hundreds of other employees. How I kicked around looking for work from then through August, and how in August I returned as a DVD Press operator at a fraction of my old pay. How grueling and physically exhausting and at times very painful this work has been.

A few weeks ago I was approached by a member of upper management whom I have known for most of my work life and was told that a data analysis position - well, more a sort of long-term special project - would likely be opening in a while, and I would be ideal for it. It was still in the planning, preliminary stages, so I shouldn't get too excited just yet. ( I didn't.)

Last week, on the first day of my four-day rotation, she approached me again with the good news: the job was approved, and I would be getting pulled off the press floor and back into the world of data analysis. The job would be Monday-Friday, 8:00-4:30, and was to start the next day, last Thursday.

Immediately warning bells started to go off in my head, and I couldn't think of why for a few minutes. Then I remembered: appointments. Having a four-days-on, four-days-off schedule is great for a lot of reasons. You can figure out what days you will be free long in advance. You can do things on your weekdays off - use the bank, go to the Post Office, make appointments with doctors and lawyers or whoever.

I had three appointments scheduled for this week's days off.

Not for me, actually. Monday was cataract surgery for my mom, on one eye only. Tuesday was a follow-up appointment. Wednesday - today - was an appointment to get my broken speedometer fixed. None of these were things that could be rescheduled easily, especially since I didn't have any free weekdays to reschedule them to anymore.

On top of that, suddenly switching from a 12-hour schedule with work scheduled for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to an 8-hour schedule with work scheduled for Thursday and Friday only meant that I would be immediately losing 20 hours of pay, plus overtime. I've already taken a huge financial hit in the past year, and I didn't really want to take another hit in the month when the Christmas bills are coming due.

So I asked for - and was given - some accommodation. Last week was a transitional week: On Thursday and Friday I worked from 6:00 to 8:00 on the Press floor, assisting everyone else, and from 8:00 to 6:00 I worked at the new job. On Saturday I spent nearly the full 12 hours in the office and on the Press floor doing data collection and analysis and recasting some things to make them easier to understand, though I had to wait a bit in the morning to have security let me in to the secured office area. (Turns out the locks had already been reprogrammed to recognize my card, though we had been assured that this would not be done until this week.)

Tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday I will spend 12 hours each day on the new job. Sunday I will have off, and Monday I will start on the new schedule. We'll see if I stick with those hours - somehow I doubt it.

A few months as an Operator, getting my hands dirty and occasionally scarred, learning the processes from the inside out - just like in 1992-1993. Now back into data collection and analysis, just like before. What next? Who knows?

All I can say for sure is: the databoy is back.

Some thoughts on turning 40

If you're a regular reader, you're probably aware that I craft a lot of these posts ahead of time. Oh, I don't write them, and re-write them, and polish and edit them - not outside of my skull, anyway. But I come up with an idea, and mentally lay out a basic outline of how I'd like the post to go and what conclusion I'd like to draw, work out a few key phrases, and then do a little research if it's called for.

I've had at least one post completely fall apart in the writing, which is a pity, because it's one of the half-dozen or so that I've had in mind since I started this blog. I haven't given up on it yet, but I may need to outline it on paper to make sure it stays on track.

Last night I was chatting with Ashley (who is cool and wonderful and you should really be reading her blog, Ink On Paper), and I suddenly hit her with a few projected lines from this post, which at that time was to be entitled "Staring Down the Barrel of a 40". I was really just whining about where I'm at right now and disappointments in my life - materially, financially, professionally, in terms of what has happened to so many of my friendships and relationships. And she made me realize that I shouldn't be measuring my life by these things, and that many other people feel the same way - like maybe this feeling is a universal, a general dissatisfaction with how our lives are turning out.

But there is one thing I have accomplished that I am happy with. One thing that I have done that I can say I'm proud of.

Me: "So when it comes to major accomplishments in my life...well, you're reading it. That's my legacy. A blog."
Ashley: Hey, it's a great blog with lots of readers who look forward to it every day. It's entertaining, you get to speak your mind and help others weigh the facts. Don't write it off so easily. Besides the fact that it has brought you many friends, from all over.

She's right.

I am happy with this blog. And I'm even happier about all of the people I have met through it. Here's to many more years of all of us being together out here.

To all of you who have sent birthday greetings or who have just been beaming happy thoughts my way: THANK YOU! I appreciate it more than you can ever know. Thank you, all of you, for making this blog worthwhile. And thank you all for making turning 40 a little easier to take.

Sarah McLachlan: Possession

There are a few things you should not do if you are dealing with a stalker. You should not, for example, meet with them. You should not talk to them. You should not have any other interaction with them. Even your most strenuous attempts to tell them directly to leave you the hell alone will be interpreted as encouragement.

Pretty close to the top of the list is this admonishment: You should not write a song that takes its lyrics from the letters your stalker sends you.

Sarah McLachlan did just that with her song "Possession." Here are two versions of the video to this song. The first one is the Canadian version, and was directed by her*:

The second one is the American version, as seen on MTV. Sony/BMG has posted a higher-quality but non-embeddable version of this video to YouTube.

It turns out that one of the reasons you should not do this sort of thing is because of what happened to Sarah McLachlan: her stalker tried to sue her for using his words without permission or attribution. This worked out in the end, though. The stalker killed himself before his lawsuit could go forward.

Sarah has lived on, and has prospered. Today she turns forty.

Forty. Think about that. FORTY! Sarah McLachlan is forty years old! She's OLD! So OLD!!! Forty is immensely, immeasurably old! She's...she's...

...well, she's older than me, anyway.

By a day.


*This is the second video I have posted in three days that has a Salomé reference. That's kinda odd.

COP INTERRUPTS WAKE, DEMANDS MOURNERS MOVE CARS

(Clarifications and corrections: It's not clear whether the policeman in this incident was from Dallas or Dallas Township. The event was a memorial service, not a wake. And the aneurysm did not necessarily occur while the woman was sleeping. All other information has been checked and confirmed by the person who witnessed these events.)

This is just outrageous.

It isn't my story. It's a friend's story, and she'll tell it soon. But it ticks me off enough that I want to give the story some air, too.

She was at the wake of her former boss. My friend had worked for this woman at a company that was acquired last year by another company, which then let go of large portions of its newly-acquired staff - including my friend. On December 31, they also disposed of my friend's former boss.

A little over a week ago, my friend's boss had an aneurysm in her sleep. A few days later she died. But she will live on, in the organs that were harvested from her body that will be used to save other lives. Sixteen organs. Maybe sixteen lives saved thanks to her. I didn't know you had that many harvestable organs.

Today was her wake. It was in Dallas, an area composed of rural landscape and overpriced houses. It's a pretty place, and I go there to shop sometimes - the local Agway is there, as was one of my favorite natural food stores.

The wake was crowded. Standing room only. Cars filled the church's parking lot, as well as the parking lots of several nearby businesses. A tribute, of sorts, to the woman.

Until the police showed up.

It might have been a single cop. He entered the wake and announced that there had been complaints about the parking situation, and unless some cars were moved immediately they were going to be towed.

OK. Maybe this cop didn't notice that he was at a wake, and didn't think that maybe he should behave a bit more respectfully. Maybe he had just had a long hard day of protecting the public from the worst criminal filth out there and was under a lot of stress. Maybe extenuating circumstances exist that could excuse his behavior.

Or maybe he was just a little tin god, a schoolyard bully all grown up and now carrying a badge and a gun and a chip on his shoulder with the words I AM THE LAW engraved on it.

Scumbags like this give all cops the name "pig". It may not be fair, but it's a problem the good cops should deal with. If there are any of them left.

A little old lady with breathing issues, walking with a cane, approached him. She was one of the people he had called out, demanding that she immediately move her car. She chided him for behaving inappropriately.

He responded by telling her fine, he'll just have her car towed. Then he slammed the door and left.

I'm amazed he didn't arrest her on the spot for disorderly conduct.

Maybe someone has complained about him. Maybe someone got his badge number, or his patrol car number. Maybe someone will read this and start making some inquiries. Maybe the Dallas Police will look into this matter and, after a lengthy investigation, determine that the officer was guilty of nothing more than overzealously enforcing parking laws. Or, if they should determine that some form of punishment is called for - perhaps administrative leave, with full pay and benefits - the Police union will descend upon them, demanding that the cop in question be restored to his previous position, and given a hefty raise and promotion in recognition of his bravery.

Are there any good cops left? Does anyone else have a problem with this sort of behavior?

More music

I was doing some more poking around YouTube, looking for more videos by my favorite female Alternative musicians. While Sophie B. Hawkins doesn't quite count as Alternative, the Alternative Rock scene presented women in musical roles like nothing before or since (except, maybe, Country and/or Bluegrass.) So I went off on a jag searching for videos by these women. Some of the ones I viewed this evening:

Kate Bush - "Running Up That Hill":


Kate Bush, like REM and The Cure, really predates what became known as "Alternative Music"; her music might also be classified as "Art Rock", though its best classification is "Kate Bush." This can be thought of as the "dance" version of this video, because it features the Godlike Kate Bush dancing, dancing like she's made of water - which, in fact, she is, mostly. I couldn't find the "performance" version, which is the one I remember from 22 years ago, but this one is much better. To see more of Kate dancing, watch the video for "Sat In Your Lap" - but be prepared to lose your mind.

(On a personal note, this song is crosslinked in my memory to the Doctor Who serial "The Pleasure Hive", which was airing for the first time on my local PBS channel at the same time that this video came out. Coincidentally, some scenes from this version of the video strongly resemble scenes from the climax of that story.)

I bounced around to other videos. "Rid of Me" by P.J. (Polly Jean) Harvey - again, not the version I saw on MTV, but it gets the point across. "Bull In The Heather" by Sonic Youth - every version I could locate has atrocious sound, but, hell, Sonic Youth has a video collection out on DVD - I bought it for this video alone.

And then, of course, there is Hole.


This is Hole's dark, edgy cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman" from the movie The Crow II: City of Angels. This video helps us to remember that Courtney Love hasn't always been skanky and burned-out and scary-looking. Once she was skanky and talented and gorgeous.

And speaking of gorgeous, who is the beautiful woman dancing and singing and playing bass alongside Courtney Love? Hole aficionados will know that this song came out after bassist Kristen (or was it Kirsten? I've seen it both ways) Pfaff quit the band and died of a heroin overdose. The bassist role was picked up by the lovely Melissa Auf der Maur, who later went on to play bass for the Smashing Pumpkins after D'arcy Wretzky's departure.

(from A Billy Corgan Christmas, CMJ Magazine, December 2000)

Which led me to the final video of this entry: Smashing Pumpkins' "Stand Inside Your Love".

This is post-Pumpkins Pumpkins: D'arcy and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain were both gone; James Iha was still there, and Melissa Auf der Maur (I love her name; it means "off the wall!") on bass and some guy whose name I've never looked up on drums*. Visually and musically, it is related to the post-Jimmy pre-Melissa album Adore, as can be seen by comparing it to the video for "Ava Adore", though SIYL features a less Nosferatuesque vibe.

This song is why I rail against the dollar-a-download no-more-albums paradigm that is emerging in music. Once I made myself an MP3 compilation CD by dumping a bunch of CDs onto my hard drive and then recording all of them as one disc containing hundreds of MP3s. And one day while coming back through the Poconos on Route 80 after visiting some friends in New Jersey, I heard "Stand Inside Your Love" for the first time. What the hell is that?, I asked, and played the song again, and again. That's the Smashing Pumpkins, I thought, but I've never heard this song before.

It took some digging to locate the song on one of the albums - either Machina or the Greatest Hits album. Even though this song was released as a single, I never heard it get any airplay. But because I had the entire album, with all its songs, I also had this one. The only way I actually heard it was by accidentally listening to the entire album. If I were the sort of person to be downloading music, I might not download something I had never heard before. Might I have foolishly considered this some random filler track and passed it by?

*According to the Wikipedia entry on this song, Jimmy Chamberlain was back with the band for this album, Machina/The Machines of God. But that doesn't look like him in the video. And while the drums are good, they're not Jimmy Chamberlain good. But what do I know? Besides, this is Wikipedia, so at least some part of the entry is guaranteed to be false.

Damn, Wish I Was Your Lover

I was just poking around on YouTube looking for a video that I plan to post on January 28th. It's related to yesterday's post, and January 28th is significant to the singer-songwriter. (You now have more than enough clues to identify the song, or at least the singer, especially if you have the Life In Hell 2008 Calendar.)

Anyway. Thinking of, and watching, and hearing this song put me in mind to some other drum-and-bass-heavy songs by female singer-songwriters. In particular, "Damn, Wish I Was Your Lover" by the gorgeous and talented Sophie B. Hawkins. Here is the ultra-sexxxay version of the video, as (allegedly) posted by Sophie B. herself:



I remember this version, or at least parts thereof, from back in the days when MTV still showed the occasional music video. It may have been intercut with this version, which is less sexxxay, but makes certain points about Sophie B.'s sexuality somewhat less opaque. Maybe. None of this is intended to detract from the fact that this is a damn fine song.

And if you're into the drums and the bass and the female singer-songwriters, here's Fiona Apple with "Sleep to Dream". (She's a little too skinny and strung-out looking for my tastes, but, hey, like I would ever have a chance with either of these women?)



Enjoy!

A life lived in the open

One of the consequences of being a blogger is that you open yourself up to the public, one way or another. Maybe you're a "life" blogger, giving details of your personal life to readers one blog entry at a time. Maybe you're a political blogger, standing on a soapbox and proclaiming opinions that you want people to hear, and maybe even pay attention to. Could be that you're a camgirl blogger, showing your pretty face (and sometimes much more) for appreciative strangers who compensate you with the occasional tip or item from your wish list, and writing pieces about the crazy adventures you get into.

All of us are out there in the open. At the mercy of the public.

...'cause deep down
We are frightened and we're scared
If you don't stare...

- Smashing Pumpkins, Cherub Rock

Most of the time it's cool. But sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes a reader may become more than a bit obsessive, and aggressive, and cross the line into stalkerhood.

What do you do then?

The short answer is, I don't know. But there is an excellent article called "Don't Feed the Stalker" that I think everyone should read. It's scary, but very informative; unfortunately, some of the advice may be a little hard to take for people who have created and wish to maintain a public persona.

The only way to break this cycle is to increase the cost of contact to the point where he's finally simply unable to pay it. And that means cutting him off entirely until he either finds something else to obsess about; or he simply hears the "no" at last, and gives up. This is why the best thing a stalkee can do is move to a new town, delist her number, change her online ID, and takes all the other steps necessary to put herself completely and totally beyond his reach -- for at least several years, or (better) forever. (For celebrity stalkers, they recommend other tactics, but the strategy is the same.) Scarce or intermittent contact is, in many ways, the worst of all worlds: it drives the price of contact up so insanely high that the stalker may decide to pay it up all at once in a burst of violence.

If you or someone you know has ever had to deal with a stalker, or if you or they are in a position where you may someday be confronted by a stalker, please give the article a read. At least you'll have a heads-up on what can be done.

R.I.P. Heath Ledger

The company I work for used to be a division of Time Warner. We still maintain a relationship with Time Warner and its movie and music studios. Part of this relationship translates into getting cool kickass movie posters, which are framed and hung on the walls and periodically rotated. A new one appeared a few weeks ago in a place of prominence: a crazed, bedraggled, clown-like figure, seen through what appears to be a greasy pane of glass, draws what looks like a manic grin in what appears to be blood. Above, the words "Why so serious?" loom menacingly. Below, the movie title: The Dark Knight. The new Batman movie. Featuring Heath Ledger as The Joker, in what is being widely acclaimed as a stunning, original characterization of the old favorite villain.

Gone, now. Dead.

I first heard the news pretty early in the cycle yesterday. I only caught the tail end: "...Ledger was found dead in his apartment..." Immediately my pop-ups came on. Ledger? Heath Ledger. Brokeback Mountain. Batman? Maybe. Maybe it was the other guy.

It wasn't the other guy.

I checked the IMDb entry for Heath Ledger and didn't see a date of death. It hasn't happened yet, then. I confirmed that, yes indeed, he was The Joker in the new Batman film. Back out to CNN to listen for more, and the story repeated and repeated. No two ways about it. Heath Ledger was dead.

Britney Spears. Lindsay Lohan. Amy Winehouse. Keith-freaking-Richards. All alive. And Heath Ledger is dead.

The first person I thought to contact was Immora. (Immora's a camgirl; do you have a problem with that? 'Cause I don't.) I've been reading Immora's blog for several months now, and she has been very excited about Heath Ledger's performance in the upcoming Dark Knight, even using "Why so serious?" as a personal tag for a while. She would want to know.

Several hours later I got in touch with Ashley as soon as I saw her online. She had just gotten home from work, so I figured she wouldn't have heard the news yet. As a fan of both comic books and movies, I knew she would also want to know.

Heath Ledger let the world know what sort of range he had as an actor with his performance in Brokeback Mountain. But I truly feel that, with his portrayal of The Joker, he would now let the world know that he was capable of anything.

Gone, now. All gone.

While others are comparing his death to other celebrities who died too young of excesses of alcohol or drugs, to me his death is on a level with the stupidly tragic death of Brandon Lee. Rather than being a showcase for his talents, The Dark Knight will now be one of several sad, final notes in Heath Ledger's life, reminding us of what could have been.

Snowball of Blogs

I've been trying these last two days to make up for having neglected NEPA Blogs for so long. I've been adding blogs that I've received via e-mail or comments, and I've been going back and tagging all of the existing posts with labels. There aren't that many posts, so this isn't as big a project as the still-incomplete labeling of all the old Another Monkey posts.

One of the things that I'm finding are a lot of dead links and dead blogs, sites that simply don't exist anymore or haven't been updated in months or longer. Things like that sometimes make me wonder if blogging's time has come and gone, if maybe people are getting out of blogging and nobody is getting into it anymore.

One of the reasons I started NEPA Blogs was pure unenlightened self-interest. I wanted to improve my Google rank by increasing the number of sites that link to Another Monkey. I had a vision of a site that would link to my site, and to dozens of other sites, and each of those sites would in turn link back to it, so each site would effectively be two links removed from dozens of other sites. In theory, there would be a certain threshold beyond which this plan would raise everyone's Google rank just by the total value of all the links pointing to and from the central site.

And it might have worked, if I had remembered to ask everyone to link back to NEPA Blogs.

There's a thing - I refuse to call it a "meme", because I hate the appropriation of that term to mean something completely different from the original definition of "a self-replicating unit of information, analogous to a gene in biology" - called "Linky Love" that's going around. It seems to have escaped into the wild from its original source and mutated a bit, but the idea is essentially the same as what I had for NEPA Blogs: by having a lot of sites linking to each other, everyone's Google Rank may effectively go up. The original "Linky Love" site seems fairly unenlightened - "Add your link to make money online." - and sounds almost like a pyramid scheme of some sort. Well, I'm not sure if I'm gonna suddenly get rich by participating in this - I seriously doubt I'll see any financial benefit -, but I'll play the game, at least as it was handed to me by Whim.

I have to tag 5 other bloggers and we just keep adding on to the list. You do not replace anyone, just copy the list and add your blog at the end of it. The list will get longer, attract new readers, and you'll make new friends.

The Strategist Notebook
Link Addiction
Ardour of the Heart
When Life Becomes a Book
The Malaysian Life
Yogatta.com
What goes under the sun
Roshidan’s Cyber Station
Sasha says
Arts of Physics
And the legend lives
My View, My Life
A Simple Life
What Women REALLY Think
Not Much More Than This
Life In The Lost World
The True Tales of a Minivan Mama
"Life" is a Noun
Christie Silvers
Marla's Fun Stuff
My Pretty Face
Simone's Butterfly
Just a Flip Flop Mom
Stone Soup
Gill's Jottings
Work of the Poet
Wakela's World
Modern Day Goddess
Livin With Me
Are We There Yet??
Everything And Nothing
Little Wing
The Babblings of Whimsicalnbrainpan
Another Monkey
Multiple Synchronicities and Sclerosis
Skeet's Stuff
The Dreamtime
Life, Or Something Like It
Ink On Paper
mhryvnak.net/blog
Almost Quintessence
My Distractions In This Modern Age
If I Were Queen of the World

The fun thing is, these are (as far as I can tell) all active, living blogs. And, aside from Whim's and one of the blogs she linked, I don't think I've ever visited any of them before! I intend to stop by each one to have a look around, and see if maybe I'll become a regular visitor.

I've taken the liberties of modifying the list into an actual list, rather than a string of links separated by slashes, and replacing any blogger names that appeared on the list with the actual names of the blogs (as best as I could determine them).

Instead of a pyramid, I guess this is more like a snowball. It will keep getting bigger as it rolls along, and no one is being asked to do anything but post the list, add to it, and then forward it to the people who have been added to it.

So who did I add?

• Ashley's Ink On Paper. She doesn't get the number of readers she deserves, and if doing this silliness helps to send some readers her way, then more power to it!

• Michelle's mhryvnak.net/blog. Because she makes me laugh.

• Anne's Almost Quintessence. Also very funny. And I owe her at least one of these!

• SuperG's My Distractions In This Modern Age. Quality stuff that more people should be reading.

• And last but not least...Supertiff's If I Were Queen of the World. A great read, whatever the topic.

So there are my additions. These five are already at the bottom of the list. If you've been tagged, please copy the list and pass it on to five lucky bloggers of your choosing!

"That's a Blumpkin, yo."

When I was a kid MAD Magazine wasn't the only game in town when it came to satire and humor magazines. There were others: Cracked was a kinder, gentler, less edgy sort of magazine. Crazy, from Marvel Comics, was noted for its poor production values. Sick I never picked up, but I had the impression that it was definitely not for kids. And National Lampoon was touted as collegiate humor, even though it seemed to be aimed at adolescents looking for some pictures of boobies.

MAD is still around, in print and as a website, and as far as I can tell is the only humor and satire magazine left on the stands. According to Wikipedia, Sick folded in 1980 and Crazy in 1983. National Lampoon went through a lot of changes of leadership in the early 90's and eventually folded in 1998, though it lives on in NationalLampoon.com.

Cracked also has ceased publication, but it too lives on through its website. I discovered cracked.com through a link on United Hollywood, the unofficial blog of the Writers Guild strike. And, damn, is it funny.

The humor on cracked.com is edgier (NSFW, in some cases) than the magazine of my youth, and definitely R-rated. But I'm cool with that. The site features a lot of video content, too. My introduction was The Internet Party: What Happens When Google's Parents Leave Town for the Weekend? from the troupe Those Aren't Muskets! What happens when personifications of some of the most popular websites on the Internet go to a party hosted by Google? Unsurprisingly, Snopes is totally hot. The video features some rough language, so kiddies, don't go there. (Or if you do, turn the damned sound down so your parents can't hear.)

If you have some time to kill or are just looking for a good laugh, stop on over at cracked.com and see what they have to offer.

Title reference: The final words in The Internet Party, spoken by UrbanDictionary.com.

In Search Of

I consider myself to be a fairly decent researcher. When I decide to find something out, I can be quite dogged and relentless in my pursuit. Sometimes this can rise to the level of unhealthy obsession. Sometimes I have to make myself stop.

In my previous job this was a very valuable skill. A customer would contact us and say that their company wanted to make a DVD; here is the information, here is the layout, here are the assets, here is the due date. Only none of it would be complete; everything would be lacking in some critical detail, some missing piece, and I would have to burrow into the client's intent until I knew everything there was to know about it. And then I went beyond that: If we were working on a particular movie, I would learn all about the background of the movie, all of the funky little details of it, so if anything strange popped up while we were working on it (such as a black-and-white movie suddenly becoming a color movie), I would know about it in advance, and know whether it was an issue that needed fixing or not. If we were working on a title about a particular musician or performer, or a concert title for a specific band, I would become - for a brief while - a subject matter expert on that person or group. The incidental details that I learned proved useful in more than a few cases.

When things were slow I would research things on my own. What was the current state of DVD piracy, and what were we doing to combat it? What new consumer video formats were coming down the pike? What were the state flower and motto and some interesting local customs of Alabama or New Hampshire? (OK, those last two were for a friend's son's school project. Sometimes things got very slow.)

In the end all that work didn't make much difference. Now my research is done with my eyeballs, looking for microscopic pits, flecks, scratches, stains, and dents in the DVDs that I am making on my presses.

Two of my blogging friends are looking for information, and I've tried to turn my research skills to their aid. But I've realized that I have not yet utilized a very valuable research tool, one which might hold answers that are beyond my own reach.

That would be you.

So, listen up. Maybe you can help these fine young ladies in their quests. I'm going to keep on searching for information on my own, but if you can be of assistance, please get in touch with them.

Ashley from Ink On Paper is looking for a book. She actually has a book that she has written and is trying to pitch to an agent. The problem is, one of the first things agents ask about works of fiction is "Can you name a similar book?" They're looking to see how books with similar themes have sold before they actually make any effort to get a publisher interested in your book. Which I suppose is a fair an necessary thing, but it tends to discourage innovation and new ideas. In the case of Ashley's book, the structure is a combination of a framing story in the form of a (fictional) writer's journal interspersed with short fictional stories by the writer who is keeping the journal. I have come up with several suggestions, which only imperfectly approach the form she is using. Can anyone else think of a story that has a similar structure? If you can, please let her know.

Whim is looking for information - articles, papers, books, self-help groups, whatever - on the long-term physiological effects of burns. (If you don't know Whim's story, read it. Now.) Not the psychological effects - she's quite familiar with those, and can (and probably will) write her own book about them, but the long-term - say, greater than ten years after the fact - physical effects of severe burns caused by fire (as opposed to electrocution or lightning strikes) on the human body. There are journal articles out there, but like most journal articles online they are available only to subscribers or for a fee. And the only self-help group Whim has found that might fit the bill also wants a membership fee. As she pointed out, she already paid that fee when she became a burn survivor over thirteen years ago. It seems like there should be plenty of information on this topic out there. But if there is, it's buried under tons of other stuff that isn't what Whim is looking for. I'm thinking this may call for a trip to a University library sometime, particularly a University with a medical school that specializes in burn trauma. If you have any good, solid information that can help Whim, please get in touch with her.

Title reference: In Search Of, the old TV series narrated by Leonard Nimoy.