None of the Above

[ design rants ] 2000-12-24

This got me thinking: How, in a database system, do you handle someone who has been known by more than one name? In Amazon's system, Mr. Mellencamp is known as John Cougar Mellencamp. I don't know if they have "John Mellencamp" as an artist name at all.

But, interestingly, if you search for John Mellencamp, you'll easily find one of his albums, which is titled: "John Mellencamp". So it's handled neatly, in a way.

Heh. That's kind of elegant, actually... By the way, that album came out in 1998, and that's the one with the I'm Not Running Anymore song on it. And Amazon has it listed as being by: John Cougar Mellencamp. I think he'll be trapped in databases that way until and beyond his death.

This brings me to something else, namely, the Credit Hell Saga. I recently got one of my credit reports, even though the credit agencies protested that they couldn't believe I really lived where I say that I do.

To my surprise, I'm listed on there with my old, married name. First of all: Ewwwwww. I dislike that name. Strongly. Sigh. So that's the first thing I'm going to correct.

But that's not even the interesting part. The current address and two previous addresses aren't even mine. They must be my ex-husband's. Lovely. Not that I cared, but now I know where he lives. I guess if I wanted to send him a card or something, I could (I don't). But in a way, it's nice to know that he's living in a state that I have no plans on visiting, so I will hopefully not run into him. Yippee.

But since I'm talking about the credit report, I might as well say that there are three (3) separate items that I've paid off that show up on my credit report as still being debts. Grrrrr!!!

I hate this, I hate this, I HATE THIS!!!!

One is for $23. One is for $485. And the last one, the most infuriating one, is for $1971. This is the one that I settled with Discover, and have already had to fend of TWO (2) separate collection agencies RIGHT AFTER I paid the settlement with Discover. I had to hit them over the head with the settlement letter that says: "Beth, you paid us half, it's considered all taken care of now". I hate this, I hate this, I hate this. Those bastards, HOW DARE THEY. I can't believe that they not only get me to pay the settlement (with extreme financial duress when I paid it - it took all the money I had for two months), but that they then try to get me to pay the settled half AGAIN with TWO separate collection agencies, and then STILL keep it on my credit report.

I'm so mad I could throw bricks at them! But of course I won't. Instead, I'll just rant in my log, and make all my poor readers scroll down to get to the point where I actually say something (relatively) interesting, instead of just figuratively raising my impotent fist at the Financial Powers That Be Shafting Me.

Don't get me wrong - I do not object to having stuff on my credit rating that is TRUE. I'm not trying to weasel out of anything. I just really, really, really want to inflict some serious wedgies on the responsible parties who have continued to screw me over for the things I paid off. I want to make them feel at least one one-hundredth of the discomfort I am feeling.

Okay, I feel a little better getting that off my chest.

[ good ] 2000-12-24

Bonanza!!! The other day, Luba took me to go get some videos at Vulcan Video, and we decided to stop by Tower down near campus as well.

I found some good stuff - the original Indigo Girls cd, which I had yet to fill out my collection with (hey, I had listened to the cassette so much for so many years that it was burned into my memory with essentially perfect fidelity, so I didn't really need to have it, plus I was a little sick of it and needed a break, which is now done with).

I also went nuts at the cassette sale bin, with tapes going for $3.99 or 3 for ten bucks. I got:

Devo - greatest hits
Genesis - invisible touch
Shawn Colvin - steady on
Yes - classic yes (contains the "I've seen all good people a.Your Move b.All Good People" song(s) that I've been crazy about for years for some reason)
John (+/- Cougar) (+/- Mellencamp) - scarecrow

Yes, that's right, for the cost of a typical cd these days, I got FIVE, count 'em FIVE good tapes for my car (which lacks a cd player (and also airbags, if you care)). Cool! Bonus! Better than cd's too since I don't have to waste the time transferring them to tapes. These are all the kinds of things I'd listen to only occasionally, as well.

I have gotten a little sick of some of my mix tapes, even ones I made like ten years ago. Goodness me, did I just say that? TEN YEARS?!??!!? Oh boy, I'm getting old... What a frightening prospect.

More on Scarecrow, by John (+/- Cougar) (+/- Mellencamp): this is the album that has Small Town, one of my favorite songs by him. I like the foreward to this album on the liner notes:

The highway between John's house and the studio where these songs were recorded cuts through a stretch of Indiana where the land is fertile and full of growth. It is from this land and its people that these songs are born, and though it is not necessary to know this to enjoy and appreciate them, it does lend a certain understanding for those care to think about such things.
G.M.G. 1985

Count me among those who care to think about such things. That is so neat, I really like it. I have no idea who G.M.G. is - I don't see any names in the credits that seem to match those initials. Hmm.

There's something interesting, too, about the lyrics written in here. After the title of each song, before the lyrics themselves, is printed the date *and time* that each song was recorded. I've never, ever seen that. How very... odd. Compulsive, maybe? (or just meticulous, depending on your point of view) Good fodder for Incredibly Difficult Trivia, I suppose.

So here's a freebie: if anyone ever asks you when the song Small Town was recorded, tell 'em this:

RECORDED WED., APR 17, 1985 @ 12:00 NOON

More on John himself: his name-changing over the years has been rather interesting. I remember when it was just John Cougar, back when Hurts So Good came out, way back when. I remember that my sister (4.5 yrs older than me) bought the 45 of that song, and that it was on the radio all the time. I remember as well that it was considered a bit lewd. Being just a little kid, I didn't understand why. It took me, shall we say, quite a few years before I understood what S & M was, and that this song might have been referring to it. Oh, my. No wonder they thought it was lewd. As a kid, I had just thought that it didn't make much sense, that he was being figurative somehow in a way I didn't comprehend. Which was, on the whole, quite true.

On this Scarecrow album, the spine lists him as John Cougar Mellencamp, so I suppose we can call this the "transitional phase" of his naming, in 1985. But when I look at the fine print, I see that it's all copyrighted by John Mellencamp (no Cougar). So... makes me wonder. By then, had he decided he really wanted to go back to his original name, but conceded that he needed to keep the Cougar on the spine so that his fans wouldn't be thrown a curve? Hmm. Interesting.

Oh, I see that in the lyrics, each song is credited to John Mellencamp as well. The fan club address is given for the John Mellencamp Fan Club. And he signs the dedication quote as JM. Oh, let me share the dedication quote, now that I've decided to go on at length about this. It's:

There is nothing more sad or glorious than generations changing hands.

And then it goes on to say that it's dedicated to a Speck Mellencamp who was born in 1903 and died in 1983. Perhaps his dad? I dunno. Not sure when he was born himself.

So in those early days of motherhood, when I was up every night nursing Elena in the glider rocker (hadn't mastered nursing while lying down yet), those lonely dark hours when nothing is on tv except VH-1, there was a core of songs I'd see repeatedly, just about every single night. One of these was John Mellencamp's I'm Not Running Anymore, which I enjoyed quite a bit.

Which reminds me, I want to list all those songs at some point and talk about them. They are burned into my memory as only things in early motherhood can be. I will always vividly remember those quiet lonely hours in the dark, swaying in the chair while I sleepily fed my newborn baby girl.

[ rants ] 2000-12-24

I hate it when that happens: So yesterday we head off to the Westlake Farmer's Market, and what do you think we find?

A little sign that says "CLOSED - TODAY ONLY. See you next week!"

AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

This is inexcusable. I mean, really. They have a website that says "open year round", not "open year round except for when Beth decides to show up". Well okay, "open year round but not right before Xmas".

It would have taken one stinkin' little sentence to warn me. How obnoxious. Sigh. So we drove all the way out there into Egregiously Rich Neighborhoods for nothing. Grrr.

I guess this illustrates a peril o the web - just because someone has a website doesn't mean you can trust what they say, or assume they'll actually include pertinent information (such as closures, *ahem*).

What really gets me is I had even consulted a calender [sic] of one of the vendors that was supposed to be there, and they list their presence at said farmer's market yesterday on their calendar. Specifically.

You'd think that if anyone knew ahead of time that it was going to be closed, it would be a vendor who had to travel a fair distance to get there. But of course, expecting them to share that knowledge with *me* is obviously too much to ask.

...

I'm starting to worry if the rant entries / total entries ratio is getting too high. Perhaps I should keep a running total of what it is, and also show what it's been in the past week and month, so that people can get an idea of what sort of part of the trend I'm in.

But then it can't follow trends, because if it did, then I'd know when to expect more aggravating things (or a relative respite from them), and the universe doesn't work that way. Because if it did, I could actually cope better and not be so surprised and disappointed so much.

Okay, I'm whiny today. Need more caffeine and chocolate.

[ beauty mammalog ] 2000-12-22

Sometimes she's so beautiful, it almost hurts: I took this nice picture of Elena sleeping the other day. Something about the colors, I just find incredibly beautiful - the muted blues and greenish and grayish tones work very well together. Plus of course the gorgeous little sleeping princess herself.

And then the other day, I got up and started getting ready, and I noticed a treasure on my leg: a little footprint. As we lay together in the morning warmth, her foot left a lasting impression on my skin. How lovely.

People who sleep away from their little ones are truly missing out (and so are their kids).

[ good my site ] 2000-12-22

Three cheers!!! The missing entries are back! Thanks to Daniel for grabbing them back from the abyss. I will have to do something nice for him, after I destroy him in our ongoing debate about whether grammar is innate (it's not, but he foolishly thinks it is - brainwashing from the linguistics and cognitive science courses that he's taking).

Don't worry, I'll make him see the light, eventually, even if I have to invent a different verb tense to use with Elena when it's raining, or when we're outside, or something (which Daniel claims is impossible ("unlearnable") according to the theories of generative grammar).

[ beauty food good ] 2000-12-22

Okay, Sudden Mood Improvement: I just came across the Local Harvest site, and it KICKS ASS. Basically it's a guide to organic and locally-grown food across the country. Cool!

I am definitely going to check out the Pure Luck farm in Dripping Springs (not too far from here). They've got dairy goats and make goat cheese that I have heard is superb (but I haven't yet tried it).

I also want to start going to the Westlake Farmer's Market here in town (all the vendors have to grow or make what they sell - no resellers allowed! How cool!).

Oooo, I'm so excited to have this great source of information. There's even a CSA farm in Austin - wow! I worked on a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm in Massachusetts a few years ago, they rock.

Check this thing out - find some delicious local food wherever you are. Support your local growers instead of always buying from the mega-corporate-conglomerates. Unless you *want* to be like a mere cog in a machine, because you *enjoy* that kind of thing...

[ rants ] 2000-12-22

May I sign up for a different world, please? It just never ends... I find this interesting article about a study that purports to show that personality traits may correlate with soup preferences, and where, oh where does this lead, dear readers?

Come now, you already know.

This is the world we live in.

The study author concluded:

"Now that we can show differences (between soup and personalities), we can show how people who eat (foods like) soy are different from people who don't eat soy," Wansink said. "From here, we can determine how to target these people and encourage them to eat soy."

It's all about targeting a market, of course. About making people who don't want something want it, so that someone specific can make a profit.

This shouldn't be what the world is about, but it is. Grrrrrrrrrr.

Yeah, I wanna do something about it - I've got a lot of work to do, please give me time.

[ rants ] 2000-12-22

Item #3985 on the list of things that make me sad for my country: Coke gives "gift" of commercials to Library of Congress at an elitist bash.

I'm sickened, really. The Library of the nation should be too sacred to defile in such a way.

The reporters of this story actually had the cojones to say, loudly: "Why are you using a public institution to promote a junk food product?"

And for this they were tackled by cops and evicted from the proceedings. I'm glad they stood up for the honor of the Library, though. At least *someone* did.

P.S. Coke sucks; Pepsi is the Elixir Of Life.

[ consume rants ] 2000-12-21

You think *you* got it bad? Well, at least you're not an Indonesian woman working in a factory for Nike, facing humiliation and inhumane treatment when you ask for your legally protected unpaid "menstrual leave" of two days per month. Not to mention being denied a bathroom break (or the horribly inadequate numbers of bathrooms). What total scumbags. It sickens me that people can treat others this way.

Sad to say, this kind of thing doesn't surprise me so much anymore. When all that matters is Profit, what's a little human dignity?

This is the environment of fear and injustice that is created by multinational corporations concerned solely with maximizing profits. An environment where tens of thousands of women bleed through their clothes every month because they associate greater pain with asking permission to go to the bathroom than with sitting in clothes saturated with blood.

[ good ] 2000-12-21

Depression is like... This (DEAD LINK) description of depression from torrez.org is perfect. Depressingly perfect. Read it.

If you aren't quite sure what he's getting at, then count yourself lucky; it probably means you've never felt the way he describes. Trust me, you don't want to. It sucks. Been there, done that, can't hardly believe that I managed to escape it somehow.

[ consume design xmas ] 2000-12-21

Drool. I want I want I want!!! I absolutely *must* have one of these laser cutters. It's only $14,000.00, plus $500 shipping. This is *perfect* for my needs! I guess I'll have to save my pennies for quite a while to be able to afford it. But once I do, then I can at least partially make a living off of the spiffy stuff I can make with it. Cool!

[ design later ] 2000-12-20

Filing for future reference: A slashdot comment about how other controllers can be used with an Atari 2600. I'll have to do this at some point, my joysticks are toast.

[ beauty design rants ] 2000-12-20

I hate it when cool people die: and there's been a lot of it going around, dammit! Today's newly-found-out death involves Dr. David Huffman, the guy who invented Huffman codes (a way to compress data, used in a wide variety of applications) when he was a grad student at MIT.

I was looking around hoping to find a web page of his, since I had recently looked back at the webzine Grafica Obscura, which has all sorts of nifty stuff, including a page featuring Dr. Huffman and some of the neat things he created by folding paper. I was looking for his web page, hoping to find instructions for making some of those nifty things, and I find that he died last year. Dagnabbit! I found a slashdot thread that includes comments from some of his former students, and more background on how he developed Huffman codes.

Anyway, also at Grafica Obscura they show how a laser cutting machine can be used to cut paper precisely. I wish I had a laser cutter so that I could make my cut paper cards (like the ones pictured here) more easily - it gets darn tedious with the xacto blade.

This particular laser cutter goes for only $353,550.00, so c'mon, don't be a cheapskate, buy me a nice xmas present!

[Yes, I'm trying to be a little whimsical to hide how bummed out I am that such a clever, brilliant guy is dead. From cancer, no less - too many people are getting cancer these days...]

[ beauty family ] 2000-12-20

Saw the lights last night: Down at 37th street, here in Austin, about nine blocks South of us. This area is somewhat infamous, since there is a block where a fellow named Jamie started a tradition of massive, creative, garish light displays. Most of the houses on the street are now bedecked with twinkling lights every holiday season, and it's truly a delight and wonder to behold.

I took some pictures with my new digital camera, and about 33 out of 51 came out okay. It was hard to hold the thing still - I'm still learning! Anyway, here's one, and if you want to see all of them, just browse the pix directory and look for anything that begins with "lights":

This pic shows the Volcano House, taken from across the street.

Some of my other favorites of the bunch:

The tree in front of Jamie's house
A typical house in the area - that's Elvis in the front window. At the side of this house are: a larger-than-life-size Heisman trophy statue, a huge Sphinx, and flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz in a tree. Towards the back, they have a 12-foot high Eiffel tower, just to give you an idea.
A cooking range (with a piglet and fish lights inside the oven)
Lights which have never left the plastic trees they were packaged in - at the front corner of Jamie's house

It's rather an intense display, chaotically beautiful, whimsically creative, and best experienced on foot. The pictures just don't do it justice - there are numerous light strands crossing the street overhead, and all sorts of odd things in Jamie's backyard. It's just amazing.

[ beauty ] 2000-12-19

Sometimes I just come across things: At exactly the right time. I wandered to this article about a woman singer, Eva Cassidy, with an amazing voice. Unfortunately, she died of cancer a few years ago.

I can't listen to any of the sound samples of her work right now (but I'll try when I get home). I find it interesting that she has done versions of Over the Rainbow and What a Wonderful World, which Israel Kamakawiwo'ole has also done (I bought his cd recently, and I love it). He also died a couple years ago.

But that's not the most interesting part. The most interesting thing is that at this Eva Cassidy page, I see the announcement that there will be a story about her on Morning Edition (NPR) tomorrow morning. Now... what are the odds that I'd come across this today, in time for me to get ready to hear the story tomorrow morning?

Pretty cool. Sometimes things just come together nicely. It's so lovely when life goes that way.

[ good ] 2000-12-19

Heard on the radio today: This letter by Civil War fighter Sullivan Ballou. How incredibly sad.

This was in part of Ken Burns' Civil War miniseries, which I haven't yet seen.

[ consume humor ] 2000-12-19

Oh my, what an interesting name this product has: If I hadn't seen it, I might not have believed it.

Came across it while shopping at Campmor. I just got a whole bunch of cold-weather stuff for us, since we're going to go skiing when we're in Colorado.

[ family xmas ] 2000-12-19

Gift ideas: For my family to look at are now online at my website here. It's kind of crude, but please forgive me, it's the first thing I've ever made with php & sql.

If you are a family member o mine (and you know who you are!) you can add gift ideas for yourself at the main page.

Please don't anyone who is not in my family be a jerk and mess with it - you'll just make me cry and then I'll have to take the form down.

[ beauty family ] 2000-12-19

Look closely: at Elena's hair in the pictures I mentioned below. You can see the gorgeous color she's got, illuminated by the sunlight.

I have never in my life seen a more beautiful color of hair - it's brown, but when the sun hits it, you can see these rich, reddish tones that hide within.

It's like a secret treasure.

And lucky me, I get to be her mother, so I get to see it every day.

[ beauty consume family ] 2000-12-19

New toy! New toy! So I finally got one o them combination webcam & low-end digital cameras. I decided I couldn't wait for the Logitech Quickcam Traveler to come out, so I got the Intel Pocket PC Camera. It kicks butt! Just what I wanted, I'm very pleased.

It can take about a hundred pix at 640 x 480 resolution, and about two hundred at 320 x 240. There is no lcd on it, and no flash, but I think it works very well. Here's a picture I took of Elena (shrunk so it's not so huge):

It's definitely quite serviceable for my needs. Keep in mind that I'm the kind of person who for years couldn't hear the difference between cassette tapes and cd's (and even now it doesn't really bug me). So pictures that are pretty darn good are good enough for me, at least for now. To me, it's good enough if you can make out what's in the picture and any rough spots aren't major enough to dampen your enjoyment of the picture.

Anyway, look for lots more pix as time goes on. From yesterday, I present to you:

The big version of that Elena pic (big file size for some reason, perhaps related to the fact that I had to rotate it)
Elena as I see her much of the time - that is, running away towards Adventure at full speed.
Me, up on the roof - untangling Xmas lights, which I then hung.
Elena relaxing in the tub
Our bathroom, lit by three candles (this was a low lighting test)

[ rants ] 2000-12-15

I watch Discovery Health a lot: these days, and they have some really good shows (such as Birth Day - I've got fourteen episodes taped already, and I'll post a review here soon sometime).

There's a really annoying ad I see over and over again, though. It's for a Time-LIFE collection of children's songs - 100 songs on 4 cd's.

It drives me nuts, because instead of singing "the itsy bitsy spider", they sing some misbegotten monstrous imitation called "the incy wincy spider". What the hell? "Wincy"!??!? This word evokes in me the image of a spider grimacing in pain, or perhaps the Sisyphean struggle of repeatedly ascending the water spout.

So, I turn to the arbiter of all that is correct (in the English language, anyway), Google:

itsy bitsy spider - 6,890 hits
eensy weensy spider - 838 hits
eency weency spider - 489 hits
itty bitty spider - 478 hits
eentsy weentsy spider - 238 hits
incy wincy spider - 233 hits

So there you have it. They chose the *most hugely incorrect form* of the song - even "eentsy weentsy" scored higher.

What were they thinking? Probably some doofus in a position of high power enforced his or her impudent will upon the hapless children forced to sing the song this way.

Imagine the discussion and debate that went on during the recording of the song - whoever insisted on "incy wincy" must have been vastly outnumbered by those knowing the True Correct Form, "itsy bitsy". It makes ya wonder, it does. Well, me anyway.

Makes me want to write Time-LIFE and tell them that I would have bought this collection, but for the incorrect version of "itsy bitsy spider". But really, I have better things to do with my time, like sleep.

[ good quotes ] 2000-12-14

Wandering around at imdb: I find that Carrie-Ann Moss of the Matrix is a Leo (like me, cool, not that astrology means anything, but anyway), and she uttered this spiffy quote:

After The Matrix, I cannot wear sunglasses. As soon as I put them on, people recognise me.

Heh! And chaotically enough, she was also in a short-lived tv series in 1993 called Matrix. Go figure.

Speaking of the Matrix, I see that Matrix 2 and Matrix3 are already in imdb's database (don't ask me why one has a space and the other doesn't, though). Cool! I just hope they don't suck. I have very high expectations...

I went to imdb today to look for the guy who played Apoc in the Matrix, known as Julian Arahanga. I thought I recognized him from the excellent and devastatingly sad New Zealand movie Once Were Warriors. I was right! And I also happened to notice that the same character name he had in that movie (Nig Heke) is listed under another movie, from 1999, called What Becomes of the Broken Hearted. Hey, it looks like a sequel! Hmmm... I'll have to check it out, even though it has a lower rating than the original and was written by someone different.

As a side note, I have to say that the girl who played Grace in Once Were Warriors, Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell, has a gorgeous first name. The whole thing is pronounced like a fluid stream that turns around a rock. The rock is the 'g', which is soft. Anyway, I learned how her name was pronounced when I saw a version of Once Were Warriors on cable that included the director's commentary and some footage about the making of the movie. It doesn't look like she's acted in anything else yet, but dang, she was *very, very good*. I hope she does more acting, I'd definitely see anything she'd appear in. Maybe she's in school or something for now.

It's always nice to find some spiffy gems when you're out wandering the web.

[ humor ] 2000-12-14

Guess who shares my birthday? (August 3rd) Martha Stewart. Holy cow.

Also:

Martin Sheen
James Hetfield (lead singer of Metallica if you didn't know)
John Landis (director of the Blues Brothers among other fine films)

And of course many, many others that I don't recognize.

[ weblogs ] 2000-12-14

Weblog = format: I just made this entry at metafilter:

I like the idea that the definition of "weblog" is of a *format*, and doesn't imply anything about the content.
At least, it makes the most useful sense to me that way.
It's somewhat futile to attempt to put weblogs into categories or classifications of "type", since there will always be some that will cross any boundaries that you try to put up.
Of course, there *are* various weblogs out there that specifically declare themselves to be of a certain type (such as news, personal, journal, or interesting links), and follow their own definitions with great fidelity.
But that's the point - they define *themselves* as being "of a type" (well, the authors do the defining). It's not something you can impose from outside.
You can attempt a crude description for your own classification purposes, but that's about as far as you'll get.
And there will always be folks like me, whose weblog entries change character by the day, if not the hour or even the minute. It all depends on what I feel like writing about at a given moment.
Or, another way of putting it is:
I never add an entry to the same type of weblog twice.

[ design good quotes rants ] 2000-12-14

Mars rants eloquently: in this comment at metafilter. In part:

<<The more control designers have over the look of their application, the better!>>
NO NO NO! My computer exists for ME TO DO THINGS WITH, not as a canvas for designers to express their overweight egos on. If I want my windows to look different, I'll install a different GUI theme/window manager/skin/whatever, and thank you very much for respecting my decision. It's my computer, not yours, and the fact that I accidentally misstepped onto your misbegotten website does not give you permission to fuck my screen up any more than the fact that you gleaned my email address off some newsgroup gives you permission to mail me MAKE_MONEY_FAST advertisements.

And further on in another comment, he adds:

Even in the optimal case that your custom window widgets can do all of those things in as convenient a manner as the native GUI widgets did, you still experience a net loss, because the user has to learn your system. They can't apply their existing knowledge of How Windows Work to your window; they have to spend time learning your design, decoding your icons, shifting their expectations about where to click. Maybe it's a small amount of time, but you, the designer, still lose - unless you think your design is more important than the user's convenience, in which case you need to have your designer's license taken away.

Preach on, Brother Mars!

[ rants ] 2000-12-14

As if it weren't bad enough: To have to do tech support here (like I used to do but don't do anymore), apparently (DEAD LINK) working in tech support at Pacific Bell Internet is orders of magnitude worse. Yikes. Big Brother and all that. Yeesh!

[ beauty good quotes ] 2000-12-14

The more I read about Russell Crowe: The more I like him. Okay, it's not just that he's incredibly good looking (imho), but he seems to be a really cool guy. F'rinstance, when asked the often-heard-these-days question of "boxers or briefs?", he replied:

None of your f**king business!

That's just plain kick-ass. Very few public figures have the balls to just draw a line and say that, when asked unreasonable personal questions.

He exhibits, as it were, the antithesis of what you usually see on Jerry Springer.

Though he does reportedly live in a trailer on the farm he set up for his parents in Australia (according to this article, anyway). Heh! (Hey, it's probably an *extremely nice* trailer).

Heck, I wanna live in a trailer too! Yes, I decided this before I knew Russell did, so *shut up* already, I know what you're thinking. I might end up going for a nice used bus though, since from what I've been reading, way too many RVs and trailers are total crap.

[ good quotes ] 2000-12-14

Okay, just *too* too weird: I hadn't read the full bit of transcripts of interviews & online chats with Russell Crowe, but as I went on, I saw this at the end of the online chat:

Russell Crowe: I'd also like to say hi to anyone who's online from Austin, Texas, the music capital of the known world.

Color me giggly as a schoolgirl! :) Too bad I'm so late in my joining of the Russell-Crowe-worshipping cult, or I might have actually been online during the chat. Sigh. Swoon.

[ beauty later ] 2000-12-13

A Myst III fly-through: which I'll have to look at later (at home). Should be spiffy!

[ weblogs ] 2000-12-13

It's been a while: since I blogged another weblog, but here's one. It's called Hack the Planet, and the guy lives in Austin. Spiffo...

[ beauty ] 2000-12-13

I took video this morning: of the ice all over the place from the storm we had. It covered essentially everything. Many of the trees are in a very, very bad way.

They kicked us out of work early yesterday, and told us to not come in until 10am today. I wish they'd just let us stay home the whole day. Oh well.

Our power went out in the middle of the night, and it got extremely cold in the house. Luckily it was back on by 8am, though. I hate having to re-set all of the clocks.

Good lord, this is so boring.

Anyway, mebbe I'll do some video capture of the icy stuff and put it on my site. After I get thirdhand.org going, that is.

I'm working on my db design, and making lots of progress, but I'm not *quite* there yet. There about two or three really crucial bits I have to hash out. It's coming together nicely and changing quite a bit as I pin down the implementation, as I expected it would... It's going to rock very hard. :)

So now I have thrown three (3) snowballs in Austin. One yesterday, and two today, all from the ice on my car. Ok, not really snow, but the closest thing to it here. It's odd actually needing to wear a warm coat here. Heh.

[ beauty ] 2000-12-13

Bill Hicks's grave: looks like this. Just happened across it via metafilter today. Rest in peace, Saint Bill.

[ humor quotes ] 2000-12-13

Heh, heh. Maybe you have to be geeky in the way that I am geeky to truly appreciate this quote, but here goes:

Is the difference between a difference of degree and a difference of sorts a difference of degree? Or a difference of sorts?

from baylink, in a metafilter discussion.

[ mammalog ] 2000-12-13

Geez, I can be long-winded: I just made a very long post to metafilter about nursing, in a thread about this news story which concerns a 6-year old boy taken out of his mother's custody because she supposedly was "making" him nurse and he didn't want to.

I want to share this cool Heinlein quote I found which I put at the end of my metafilter post:

Nursing does not diminish the beauty of a woman's breasts; it enhances their charm by making them look lived in and happy.

[ good quotes rants ] 2000-12-13

Good SCOTUS quotes: That is, the Supreme Court of the United States. I just read all 65 pages of yesterday's decision (well okay, I skipped and scanned a little). Here are my favorite bits.

Justice Breyer, dissenting:

The Court was wrong to take this case. It was wrong to grant a stay. It should now vacate that stay and permit the Florida Supreme Court to decide whether the recount should resume.

Justice Ginsburg, dissenting:

I might join the Chief Justice were it my commission to interpret Florida law. But disagreement with the Florida court's interpretation of its own State's law does not warrant the conclusion that the justices of the court have legislated.
...
In sum, the Court's conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court's own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States.
I dissent

I noted well the absence of the word "respectfully" from Justice Ginsburg's "I dissent" statement. All the other dissenters included "respectfully". I get the feeling she's highly peeved, as am I. You go, girl!

Anyway, it'll be a mess, who cares, Dubya's moving out of Austin! At least if he has to be President, it's going to be really lame for him. He's the Fraudulent Monkey Puppet President. This will be a loooong four years, but it'll end eventually, and his little smirking butt will be outtathere...

[ rants ] 2000-12-12

This means WAR: My cd-r drive is driving me absolutely batty. I bought some new burning software yesterday at CompUSA, because I thought maybe it was Adaptec EZ CD Creator's fault.

It wasn't. The damn thing still will not burn mp3's to the cd.

It would be one thing if it simply didn't work altogether, then it would be some kind of straightforward failure. But oh no, it's not anywhere near that simple. The basic facts:

The pc is only a few months old and hasn't had any major problems, except for the first cd-r drive going kaput. I replaced it with a brand new HP CD-Writer Plus 9100.
The new HP drive worked great when I first got it. I installed it and happily burned one (1) cd full of mp3's (well, automagically translated to the cd format as it burned).
A while later I tried to burn another one, and it simply would not work. Adaptec EZ CD Creator 4 told me that I didn't have a cd-r drive selected when I tried to hit the "record" button. This behavior continues to this day.
Adaptec EZ CD Creator 4 will happily tell me all the pertinent information about my HP cd-r drive when I look at "Drive Information". It pretends that everything is fine.
The drive works fine whenever tested by any program as part of a "System Test" procedure. I can read from it, and test writes to it work fabulously.
I can *copy existing cd's* using this drive. I've done this twice since the mp3 failure, and it works fine.

Stuff I've tried already:

Downloading and installing the firmware patch for my drive from HP's website. No improvement.
Uninstalling and reinstalling Adaptec EZ CD Creator 4. Repeatedly. No improvement.
Removing and re-adding (& reinstalling) the drive, at the software level. No improvement.
Buying different cd-burning software (Hot Burn, aka Burn & Go). No improvement (I got some weird I/O error when I try to write to the drive, and this software will NOT copy cd's as EZ CD Creator 4 will do - I get some error about unexpected table of contents.)
Scanning for viruses with the Norton Antivirus that came with the PC (it does not have Live Update included). Never had a single virus or suspicious file, from day one.

Please, someone help me! I am about ready to kick the damn thing down the stairs for all the aggravation it has caused me.

I might dump it off at a computer repair place in town or something, and scream "FIX IT!!!" at them, but I feel I first must avail myself of all other opportunities to fix it myself.

I am still researching, still trying to figure out what I must be missing. Please, give me any clues that you can! I'm desperate! And I'll be eternally grateful to anyone who can help me fix the damn thing.

I know the drive works because it'll burn copies of cd's - so something else is going on, but I don't know what. I just wanna burn & convert mp3's, is that so much to ask?

[ beauty ] 2000-12-12

Whoa, *cool*! Okay, I may finally have to get a GPS device one o these days. There is a spiffy new hobby called geocaching, where people put caches of stuff at specific coordinates for others to find. Salon has a story about it. Wow. Neato. :)

[ consume ] 2000-12-12

AHA! I found it! I saw a slot for something that they didn't have yesterday at Best Buy that sounded intriguing - the Quickcam Traveler. I want one! But no one has it in stock. It should be in on January 15, 2001. I'm guessing it hasn't shipped yet. Doh! Ah well, guess I have to wait. No biggie.

[ consume ] 2000-12-11

I ordered MacAlias from Abcd's here in town. I looked at like four different places, and none of them had it.

At Abcd's, they told me they could order it for me, and it would be no extra charge. So I'll give them my money instead of Amazon, who annoy me. I'll have to wait a week, but who cares? I'd have to wait a long time for it to be shipped from Amazon anyway.

So, I'm doing a little better at patronizing local businesses, which makes me feel good. I could still do better, though.

Oh yeah, I also got the KGSR broadcasts vol 8 cd, which has 48 (!) songs on 3 cd's, for 15 bucks. Every year they put out a cd of artists who have performed in their studio (usually kind of mellow music, lots of guitar, overall), and the proceeds go to a foundation that helps provide low-cost health care for the Austin music community. All-around cool thing, I think. Plus, the music kicks serious ass and is not available elsewise.

They sell out every year, so I'm glad I got mine before they were out. I also have volumes 5, 6, and 7, which are excellent as well (and which were cheaper, but had fewer songs).

[ beauty consume ] 2000-12-11

I'm changing my look: Yes, that's right, my wardrobe is becoming much, much blacker. I don't know, maybe it was watching the Matrix the last time that put me over the edge, but now it's black, black, black, black, and black for me.

Well, not entirely - I still enjoy wearing nice solid-color t-shirts.

Anyway, so I have three black t-shirts now, and two pairs of black fuzzy pants (polar fleece - one thick and one thinner). And of course I've brought my Doc Martens out of the garage where they've been sitting for over two years. I'm wearing them again today. It's going to take me a while to learn how to walk in them normally, but I'm getting there. Once they're truly fully broken in it will be easier.

Anyway, so on Saturday, there I am at Sam's Club, and I see this leather jacket. Hmm, thinks I, let me see how I look in it. I tried it on and liked it, but since I was already spending close to $200, I balked at getting it.

So I thought and thought and thought about it after I got home, and decided that suddenly I really really wanted it. So on Sunday, I found out when they opened, and got there as soon as I could after they had. Unfortunately, the jacket wasn't there, and I was very, very disappointed. I talked to the very nice clothing expert lady, and asked if they'd be getting in any more shipments. She told me no, that this was it, and after Xmas they'd be filling up with warm-weather clothes. Damn!

So I then asked her if there were other Sam's Clubs in town. Sure enough, there were two. So I headed to the northern one, and rushed inside. To my delight, there was a table full of these ladies' black leather coats right at the front. I found a style I liked, not quite as much as the other one, but still quite good. They had two in my size, so I picked the one with the collar that didn't have a weird crease in it.

And then... I went and looked at: the black leather pants. Yes, yes, I confess, I did. And I tried on the biggest size they had (over my shorts - there are no changing rooms at Sam's Club), a 14. They were quite tight and I couldn't zip them, but I decided to get them anyway.

See, a 14 is the size I should fit into once I lose this extra weight I've got. I know, I know, buying small clothes and planning to lose weight to get into them is utter folly, and I agree.

But I just had to have them. This is so, so unlike me. I mean, black leather?!?!?! *Me*?!??! You gotta be kidding.

But no more - this is the New Me, and it kicks ass. I look *good* in black. Well, I think so anyway. I love my new jacket. It's royally cool. I tried on the pants at home and managed to zip 'em up, and they were *nice*. I didn't do anything imprudent such as bend over or attempt to sit in them (lest they split), but I could see the clear potential of how great they'd look once I lose the extra weight.

Maybe, just maybe, this is enough motivation to get me started back on the right track. I dunno. We'll see.

What it comes down to, though, is that they were too good and too cheap to pass up. The jacket is $99, and the pants were $79. Can't beat it!

Oh yeah, I also went nuts and got the Star Wars trilogy on video ($28), and three more videos for Elena: Toy Story, Alice in Wonderland, and My Neighbor Totoro (a total bargain at a mere $6!).

So in the past two days, I've spent almost $475 at Sam's Club. Good lord, stop me before I spend again!

[ food good ] 2000-12-11

Spencer came back: from the wilds of Boston, and my life is much, much easier now that I don't have to do every single bit of baby stuff all by myself. Geez, being a single parent must be incredibly tough. I have newfound respect for anyone who manages to handle a baby or young child completely alone (while working outside the home, anyway).

So he cooked last night, while I watched an unusually good X-files, and treated us to an amazing implementation of Four-Cheese Pasta. Absolutely scrumptious, I couldn't stop eating it! Thrillingly, I got to have some for lunch today. Yummmmmmmmy.

Note to self: make recipe section on website.

[ consume ] 2000-12-11

Just mebbe, I might: Get a low-end digital camera. The one I really want to get is the Canon Elph S10 (I already have a Canon Elph 370Z APS camera which I like quite a bit), but I am just not ready to spend $500 bucks for a digital camera. I am hoping the price comes down on this puppy, then I might buy.

A good sign: Canon has released two more expensive models so far, so I might eventually get lucky.

In the interim, I am looking for a combination webcam/low-end digital camera. Maybe. I dunno though, still researching.

[ ] 2000-12-09

I must get this: It's something I heard about on the local public radio station - the album High Wired by the group MacAlias. I heard one song from it several weeks ago, the one called John C. Clarke, and I liked it immediately. From the sound samples, I think I'll really like the rest of this album, too. The trick is to find it locally so I don't have to pay for shipping...

[ rants ] 2000-12-08

Sometimes I can be such a freaking idiot! I missed my skip-level meeting today with my manager's manager. Argh! I remembered that it was today, but not what time. I had meant to look it up yesterday, but it slipped my mind.

So this morning, as I'm getting ready and Elena is sleeping, I log in from home to check my schedule, and sure enough - I had already missed it. Argh!

So I sent a big "mea culpa" email to her and explained that with Spencer gone this week it's taking me a long time to get everything ready for Elena in the mornings all by myself, but that next week I'll be staying late each day to make up for it, yadda yadda yadda. I worried that I sounded whiny and desperate or something. Oh well. I figure it's better that she understand why I was such an idiot.

Anyway, she sent me email, we'll reschedule sometime, it's not that big of a problem I guess. I just feel like such a bonehead. I hate when this stuff happens. I am such a cretin sometimes.

[ food good ] 2000-12-08

What a treat: I just had a yummy bowl of Cap'n Crunch cereal, courtesy of the great Jeff, who is today's breakfast bringer among our little back-corner group at work. What a cool idea!

The only thing that would have made it better would be if it were Crunch Berries instead.

Anyway, it brings back childhood memories, of when my brother and I would make ourselves multiple bowls of the stuff after we got home from school.

Geez, I never fully realized how tough it must have been for our mom to keep us all fed. We were monsters back then, raiding the cabinets, guzzling the milk.

Guess I'm in for a dose of the same once Elena's old enough to be preparing her own meals. Perish the thought!

[ family humor ] 2000-12-08

Snapshot of my life: in the form of the contents of the current videotape we are adding to most these days:

Make of it what you will...

[ humor ] 2000-12-08

And while I'm there... that is, at the website of the Food Network, I found this cute little Slang Dictionary for the Naked Chef. I've only watched it once, but I liked it a lot. And no, he's not naked, the food is. But he *is* quite cute, I think. :)

[ my site weblogs ] 2000-12-08

As the Brady Bunch sing: "When it's time to change, you've got to re-ar-range!"

That is, I have rearranged my list of weblogs in the left-hand column, placing my more favorite ones further up, and my less favorite or often-viewed ones further down. Please, don't anyone get your feelings hurt or anything.

They are not in strict most-fave to least-fave order, just in general zones of favoriteness. Frankly, my opinion on what's my favorite changes from day to day and even hour to hour, so it can only ever be a rough approximation anyway.

I also made a separate section for discussion sites, since they have the whole discussion paradigm in common and it made sense to me.

[ rants ] 2000-12-07

Credit monstrosity update: So it turns out that both Equifax and Trans Union don't believe I live at my current address.

Bastards!

So my next step is to explicitly *prove* to them that I do. I will also throw in whatever documentation I can dig up of all the other addresses I have used in the past five years.

What a royal fucking pain in the ass. I mean, they certainly have no problem *denying me credit* while believing I live here, why should they be such jerks about *not showing me my own credit report* because I might be some malicious impostor merely *pretending* to live in my house (which I've been at for over a year, btw)?!?!?!?!?

Credit is hell.

And, for the record, I am a person who slavingly *PAID OFF* all of my debts. I could have declared bankruptcy, but NooOOOoooOOOooo, I called each and every one of my creditors, and I paid off each one, bit by bit, once I was making enough money that I could do so.

So this is my reward for paying them back - I am not even allowed to see my own credit report.

It's a wonder they don't get bombed more often, really. (No, I'm not advocating anything of the sort; I am quite non-violent). I'm just saying, if this is how they treat someone like *ME*, imagine how badly they are shafting other people out there, on a regular basis. People who have fewer scruples and less self-control, that is.

Oh well. Time to jump through more hoops. They hold all the cards. They could require me to amputate a finger in order to prove I am who I say I am before they'd show me my own fucking credit report, and I'd have to comply, because I'd have no choice.

Yeah, I'm bitter. Can you tell?

[ body ] 2000-12-07

Various minor complaints: I had a weird dream last night which involved being stung by at least four different bees. And it hurt like hell. I hate how in my dreams, I can feel pain. It doesn't seem fair, since it isn't real pain. Ah, well, the price for vividness, I suppose.

I finished the last Augmentin last night. Finally! It's kind of annoying to have to keep taking big nasty pills many days after getting better, but then again I'm just whining. I mean, it's an eensy weensy tiny little price to pay for being able to have effective antibiotics.

And the consequences of not finishing the entire course are nasty indeed - I certainly don't want Augmentin-resistant bacteria swarming through *my* system, nosirree!!!

And I won't even mention the typical yeast infection that Augmentin gives me every time I have ever taken it, until this time, in which I may have actually dodged it. Whew. Thank goodness for small miracles. Of course, the jury's still out, I'm crossing my fingers, but all signs are good.

Since I'm whining about bodily stuff, let me just mention that the booboo I've got on the inside of my right eyelid no longer hurts, but there's still a hard little bump there, which worries me. I mean, what the hell is it? Is it going to go away? What should I do about it, if anything?

I guess it's these kinds of questions that plague one as one ages. I suppose I can expect more of the same in the future, increasing with each decade. As long as the answers never end up being: "cancer; no, it's going to eat away at you slowly; assault it with knives, poison, and radiation to get rid of it before it kills you if you can", then I can count myself lucky. Relatively, anyway.

[ consume good ] 2000-12-07

I got my Pets.com sock puppets!!! And they are oh so cool. You really should be jealous.

I actually only took one out of the box, so that the other two can remain Mint In Box for future generations to be bilked for large sums of money. Either that, or to serve as particularly precious gifts for people who mean a whole heck of a lot to me and who feel the same way about the Pets.com sock puppet as I do. That is, in the future sometime, perhaps. Only if someone does something really incredibly nice for me, like save my life, maybe.

I brought it to work, so that its clever witticisms might brighten the day of my cow orkers, which it has served quite admirably to do.

I like to squeeze its little mouth now and then and hear it talk to me, it makes me smile.

"Hang on, Dino! We're coming HOOooooOOOooome!"
"I'm here to play with the tabby cat."
"I like your shorts! You're a good lookin' fella."
"Oh wow, you've got a stuffed thing. I love stuffed things!"
"Look. I'm a professional Happy Puppet Thing."

I just thought of a great question for an incredibly difficult trivia contest or scavenger hunt: What time is it on the Pets.com sock puppet's watch? And what day?

No, I'm not going to tell you the answer. Buy your own sock puppet, there are a ton of them on eBay! (at least for now). Be as cool as me! BUY BUY BUY BUY!!!

[ beauty ] 2000-12-06

Pretty: This Dutch guy's work is beautiful. I don't have time to explore all of it right now, but just the little bit I've looked at has been exquisite. It's interactive java stuff, you move the mouse and it affects how the thing is drawn and how it moves. Try it, it's pretty!

[ body ] 2000-12-06

Great progress is being made: in the Doc Martens vs. My Feet negotiations, I'm pleased to say. I wore them yesterday, and felt reasonably good at the end of the day.

What a pleasant surprise! So I wore them again today, and it's actually going quite well. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. I think I have reached a critical tipping point of leather malleability, after which things are getting easier and easier.

Pretty soon, I'm hoping that the feet & the boots will be good friends. Yippee!

I know, I know, you're utterly riveted by this whole drama, aren't you?

[ design my site ] 2000-12-06

Speaking of progress: I'm working on the design of my massive information-control system, which I have dubbed the Third Hand, or just thirdhand for short. (I got thirdhand.org right after I came up with the name last week or so).

The idea for the name is this: we've got two hands for manipulating stuff, and they're very spiffy with what they can do - extremely powerful, versatile, a big part of what makes us human. I am trying to create a third hand, a hand for the mind, to allow me to control and manipulate information as easily as turning over something in my hand.

Plus I kind of like the idea of thirdhand as opposed to secondhand. "Secondhand" to me means one step removed from the source. I consider thirdhand to be yet another step removed, yet a step which somehow is able to place the item into another, more proper, context. A context different from the source, of course.

I have pretty much set the basic underpinnings of how it will work, I just need to create the databases and start hacking. I am still waiting for my other (more advanced) php book to come from Amazon so I can learn more in-depth kickass stuff.

I am thrilled with how this is all coming together. It's odd, I have been working for so long on such a thing, trying to figure out how to make it work, and having figured it out... it's not... earth-shattering. I mean, it's not any huge major insight, just a different way of handling things. It's actually very simple.

Which makes sense, on a very deep level, to me. I mean, it should be elegant, not snarled in spaghetti strings of complication. But when I think about it, I am somewhat amazed that no one else has come up with the idea of doing things this way. Because it seems so... obvious that this is how it should be done.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The basic idea is that I want to be able to store anything and everything, in a way that allows each "tidbit" of information (as I have dubbed them) to be related to any other piece of information. Well, actually several other pieces of information.

I have been beating my head in frustration against the limitations of purely hierarchical categorization schemes for a long time. I *hate* them! Sooner or later you always end up having to compromise by putting something into a category which doesn't exactly fit, and you really lose something there, which starts small but begins to creep and expand, and soon your information structure is a total mess.

It's insidious. And I haven't even touched upon the notion of "category creep", where you end up with too many damn categories, and also don't forget the whole phenomenon of people misinterpreting the categories, or not realizing that some of them are there.

So I have my own proposal to fix this problem, at least for my own data. Part of the key to fixing this is something I've known for years - each tidbit should be able to be placed in as many categories that it needs to appear in.

There are other parameters to the solution which are just as key - for instance, not having a strict hierarchy. That is, no single top-down flattened way of organizing things. Each individual item does of course have its own orientation, things which are "bigger", things which are "smaller", and things which cover about the same size of ground. The trick is to let such a system end up with loops, if needed. That is, A is bigger than B, which is bigger than C, which is bigger than A. You can't do that with a flat hierarchy, but you can do it easily with my system. :)

And, I'll keep people from getting lost. There will be a breadcrumb trail of the last N followed links, and an easy way to get to "bigger" areas and "smaller" areas, as well as "similarly-sized" areas.

Yes, eventually I'll implement searching too, but I'm not there yet. I am also going to experiment with the use of color to convey information - perhap a gradient of hue to indicate how new or fresh information is, such as bright blue = new and black = a month or more old.

The really cool part is that I'll be able to have all of these things connected together exactly how they need to be:

weblog entries
weblog categories
bookmarks
quotes
photos
birth & breastfeeding info
long pieces that I write
discussion entries

and on and on... I am going to have a way for people to log in and get a user id, that way it can track their preferences better, and they can add content or participate in discussions if they wish.

And I promise, the urls will be really short. :) Oh yeah, and no steeenking java or javascript! The most complex thing I'll do is tables. And maybe just a wee bit of stylesheets, but I'm still not decided on that. My impression is that they are so inconsistently supported that you are just asking for trouble with varying browsers looking at your site. Ugh! Anything that's that fraught with peril, I try to steer clear of.

I'd like to eventually make a bookmarklet to add stuff to it while I'm surfing the web, so that counts as javascript, I guess, but it doesn't really count because it's not part of the interface. Heh!

So get ready, some interesting stuff is coming. I am hoping to have at least a working alpha version by December 15th, so I can enter it into the SXSW website competition. I entered my weblog into it yesterday, so we'll see if that gets me anywhere. The conference/shindig/whatever isn't until next March, so there's quite a while to wait. Sigh. Well, I've got a lot of work to do. Bye for now.

[ humor ] 2000-12-05

The inevitable: Fried Chicken Head Dance has been perpetrated by a wacky cow orker of mine, Fred. He confesses he has way too much time on his hands.

Expect more contributions by Fred in the future, I've been saving up funny stuff that he sends out, and I told him I'll put 'em in my weblog (he doesn't have one himself, and doesn't feel like doing one yet).

[ good mammalog ] 2000-12-05

Sad but good: This story of a 33-year old woman who recently died of metastatic breast cancer is very moving. She was a photographer for the newspaper, and chronicled her battle with cancer. This is the last piece.

Not sure what to say, just very sad. I'm glad for her that she had a good death, the way that she wanted, surrounded by those she loved, not in pain.

33. What a pity. Geez, that's too damn young. :(

[ humor ] 2000-12-05

Floridian Rhapsody: Bush vs. Gore in verses. Sung to the tune of "Bohemian Rhapsody".

[ family ] 2000-12-04

Sad Monday: Spencer has gone on a week-long business trip up to Boston, so Elena has been particularly clingy and stuck to me like glue (he just left yesterday). It was horrible dropping her off at daycare this morning - she screamed and cried for all she was worth. I felt like the meanest mommy in the whole, wide world. :( I hate this feeling. I know she'll be okay, but it just rips my heart apart to see her so unhappy.

[ beauty books good ] 2000-12-04

Finally read Jimmy Corrigan: Yesterday, I read the first third of Jimmy Corrigan during the day, and finished it after Elena went to sleep. I was up until two.

It's one of the best books I've ever read in my life.

And I'm damn picky, so that's saying something. It was so incredibly moving, and subtle, and complex, and interwoven, and exquisite, and I could go on and on and on. Please, read it!

And buy it from a local comic book shop, not a chain store, and DEFINITELY not from Amazon, okay? If comics are going to survive as an art form, people need to support their local outlets. If there are comics out there that are anywhere near even 10% as good as this book, I'm totally hooked.

I mean, I've liked comics for a while, I just don't have that many of them, and I don't know how to find the best stuff (I'm very very picky). And some of it is clearly brilliant, like Art Spiegelman's Maus, and now Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan. Damn, what a beautiful book, both to look at (the cover & everything) and to read. Wow.

I am so profoundly affected by this book, I can't even begin to describe it. Words can't do it justice. (because it's comics, you see - it's more than words, more than pictures. Read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics for more details on the history, how & why & wonder of comics as an art form unlike any other.)

I already loaned it out to Fred, a cool coworker of mine. I can't wait until he's done, because I want to re-read it. I'm sure that I missed a lot the first time through...

[ beauty ] 2000-12-04

So I'm listening: to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, the Hawaiian singer who sang the eToys theme. I bought the cd from Amazon (after several attempts to find it locally), and I hadn't really had a chance to listen to it yet.

So I brought it and my headphones here to work, which is something I rarely do. I can't concentrate well on either the music or my work, usually, so I don't listen to music at work as a rule.

Anyway, this thing is tremendous - absolutely beautiful, every song. I love his voice. It's so soothing and sweet and melodious.

And I found another treasure - there was a song I heard but once about three years ago when I was driving to work, and I despaired that I didn't remember enough of it to ever find it again... Well, I just finished listening to it. It's on this album!

Pretty amazing. Lucky, lucky me. So this music is making me miss Hawaii again, very badly. I keep thinking of soft sand on my feet, the sunshine, the breezes, the way it's never too hot or too cold, the sound of the waves, the clean water, the way you can orient yourself anywhere: mauka, makai, ewa and diamond head.

Dang, I really need to go back. I want to see the huge banyan trees, smell the plumeria, wash the salt off of my skin after riding a few waves on my boogie board, watch the little kids play in the surf... this music brings it all back.

What am I doing here? I should be on the beach. With Elena, of course. God, she'd love the ocean so much. I just know it.

So, I'm happy and filled with longing for faraway shores right now. Thinking about Kaena point, the solitude and wildness there. The olivene-bearing sand of the toilet bowl, sparkling in the sun. The rough rocks at Hale'iwa beach park, little bowls carved out by the waves, and the turtles playing just offshore.

All right I'd better stop or I'll never get back to work.