The Notebook

I am often plagued with good ideas. They come, they formulate, then they go. They are never written down. They are forgotten, only fragments remain. To small to reformulate. They just sit there and annoy. Pop in from time to time to remind you of the idea that you've forgotten. Like a dream, so vivid whilst you're dreaming, but hours after you've woken only a faint memory, if it even lasts that long. Whether they're good, bad, it doesn't matter. They all fade with time. There are those, from time to time, that do not. Those that stick with us long after we've woken. They stay there. Lurking in the back of your mind. As strong as ever. You try to shake them, but you can't.

I have often considered getting an notebook, or even just a pad, to keep on hand to write these things down. To maintain some form of record. Perhaps to even use one of them in the future. This, however, never happens. I have yet to discern why. It is almost as if I have some sort of subconscious aversion to remembering these things. Though I am occasionally maddened by my inability to remember an idea or theme, could it be that madness over the loss of an idea is somehow better, safer than the idea itself? Could it be that these ideas are of such pure and immense quality that the mere thought of them would drive a sane person mad? A mad person madder? A madder person sane?

It's not even as if it's an idle thought. I have tried on various occasions to procure the requisite materials such that I can keep track of these ideas. Sadly though, I have failed on every attempt. I have been through Paperclips and Bulls-Eye and Break-Room Minimum and countless stationary stores yet I cannot seem to find the right one. This one to big, that one too small. This one too hipster, that one not hipster enough. Too brown, too green, to think, to thin. To ruled, not ruled enough. Too blank, not blank enough. And the writing implements. Oh the writing implements. More terrifying then I care to think about at this point. Then, standing there amongst the shelves of incorrect notebooks and inadequate  writing implements, I am left to wonder if it is even out there. Is the idea of this supposed proper notebook just that? An idea? Could it be that writing these epic ideas in an equally epic notebook could result in some sort of  epic critical mass collapsing into some sort of epic singularity which then becomes an epic black hole which spawns some other epic universe of epicness? Could we even detect such an epic occurrence?

Could it be that these ideas exist only because they cannot be remembered?





It is a struggle to remember even fragments but we must fight on. Somewhere therein lies the question...

A Smashing Success!

So as those of you in the Cleveland area know (and those others of you who ignored the instructions in the previous post) this past weekend we had our Salon and boy was it a success. In fact even the first night blew away our expectations. Right from the start we had a full crowd and tonnes of constructive conversation. It's something we will definitely be bringing back next year, if not sooner. The best part of all was that we had almost no issues with keeping it civil. Not everyone agreed all the time, but everyone was there with the same goal in mind so that helped.

In the next couple weeks we're going to take a step back and digest what happened, what worked, what didn't and figure out what the next steps are. In the mean time if you want to continue the conversation head on over to The Civic Commons and keep it going.

Special thanks go out to Mark from The Cleveland Hostel for providing us with some awesome wooden chairs that fit the mood just right, my mother, Emily Lucas, for letting us have her old couch and my brother, Brendan Lucas for helping us move it to and from and last, Peter Paras for covering our floors and Don Pavlish for providing us with a much needed sound system.

Don't worry, we're going somewhere with this. There's still plenty left to do.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled uncertainty.

Shameless Plug

Those of you not in the Cleveland area can feel free to stop reading at the beginning of this sentence.

Those of you who ARE in the Cleveland area are hereby compelled to continue reading.

As some of you already know I have been working on a project with Andrew Samtoy (of Cash Mob and Booker fame). With him covering the logistical aspects and I the technical ones we have put together what we have dubbed The Cleveland Salon at this years Ingenuity Fest. It's three days of discussion leaders well versed on their individual subjects leading discussions and actually talking WITH people about everything from development and planning of the Cleveland area and how to inspire new leaders all the way to alternative sexualities and robots.

So get yourself down to Pier 30 & 32 (down by the Browns stadium and Science Center for those who don't know). We'll be in the Pier 32 warehouse. Along with all the other interesting activities at this year's festival it promises to be a fantastic weekend.




If we're ingenious enough perhaps there is hope?

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE!

Okay, here's the deal. I need help identifying a couple things that I remember from childhood but I cannot remember their titles at all. Ten points and muffin to whoever can help me identify one or more of the following:

The first one is a book. No idea title or author or we wouldn't be in this mess, of course. I can't even properly recall when I may have read this book or if it was read to me. I am almost certain it was on a summer reading list of some sort. Anyway, from what I recall the book starts off with a boy who gets injured falling out of a tree or onto a rock, or both. All of a sudden he begins to shrink. The doctor says he injured a specific organ or gland that's making him grow backwards. He's not unmaturing, he's just shrinking. I don't really remember what prompts the next bit but he makes friends with a bird and his father or someone builds a little cockpit so he can ride the bird on some quest that he has to go on. He has a little sword that has a drop of poison or knock out juice or something in it and flies on this bird to some citadel or tower or house along the coast I think. There he infiltrates the building and obtains whatever it is he was there to obtain but not before stabbing the person there in the wrist with his tiny knockout sword. That's pretty much all I remember of that one.

The second item on the list is a TV show. A cartoon to be specific. I was reminded of it while watching a Thunderbirds clip on the interwebs. This particular cartoon was a lot like Thunderbirds in the sense that it had multiple ships and stuff. There was a blue rocket ship and some sort of space plan ship and a crawler type ship. I think there were four or five ships. But they all connected together to form mega ship or something. They would go off and rescue people in space who needed rescuing. In the only episode I remember they fly off to rendezvous with some sort of space freighter or space liner because it's power core is about to explode and they have to cut out the power core before it does that. I remember more about the video store where I rented the VHS (oh man remember video stores?!) than I do about the show.

So there you have it. I've tried to search the interwebs for it but can't seem to find anything of either.

...Too Quiet

So things have been quiet for a while...too quiet.

Perhaps that means there is something epic in the works? Unlikely. Or is it?!

No, let's call it what it is: lazy. But even that's not it. It's not that I've been lazy. I've been distracted. There have already been several occasions where I've sat down to start writing something and then get distracted by something else. Only this tends to happen all the time. Or I sit there and stare at a blank page and wonder what to write. And then just start to type. Much like I've done here. Just rambling, searching for a topic, trying to avoid stupid, annoying, topics like politics. Which is even more difficult and annoying what with both parties having their conventions. Big parties that only make them both look stupider as they chant about how "we're better than the other party because of what we stand for and screw them we're not going to work with them on anything ever. Also screw the rest of America because we only care about ourselves." Dammit, here I go. Seriously though. As many opinions as I have on how much the politics of today is so beyond anything that we've ever seen in this country that's not what I want to turn this into.

Rather I would like to turn this to be a forum for the discussion of random topics. Topics such as the merits of various types of cheese and recipes for meat pie. Oddly enough in an effort to research various recipes of meat pies I found myself intensely desiring a steak and kidney pie. I might have to venture to the market one of these days and obtain some stake and kidneys and put them in a pie and eat it. I don't think I've ever had steak and kidney pie, but I feel as if it's something I will enjoy. Also beef heart. I've heard delicious, delicious things about beef heart. Though I imagine it's one of those things you have to be careful not to overcook or you'd end up better off munching on a shoe.

The quest continues for an engineering job. I could bore you more with how job searching is never awesome. But I won't. Rather I'll just say that the quest continues. Like I already did. Though I will add that I've started grad school. So far just a single class at CSU, but the hope is to maintain the appearance of relevance. It's actually fun. I finished my first homework assignment in five years the other day and that felt pretty awesome too. At the very least I'll (hopefully) be able to show academic improvement if/when I reapply to the Air Force in February, which I'm told is the next non-rated bored I'll be eligible for.

Actually you know what's been pissing me off recently? This damn layout/color scheme/etc. I don't like it. But I don't know what to do about it. And I don't know how to pick a font. Seriously. I think I'm worse at picking out fonts then I am at picking out ties. And I have a hard time with ties. I realized Sunday getting dressed that I need a greater assortment of colors/patterns of ties to go with a greater assortment of shirts. Also I need more shirts. I'd really like to sit down and learn how to actually code a website, but it's been so long since I've even tried any of that I wouldn't know where to start. MySQL databases and pearl and crap like that that I've only heard other people talk about. Not sure I'll have any time this year so I'll have to stick to web tools and app things. But then again, with all the web tools and app stuff available these days is it even necessary to learn how to do the base stuff? I guess it depends on what you want to do. So I suppose I should figure that out first.

I need to get back into working out. I feel that will solve a lot of blah that I'm feeling right now. Actually school's helped with that because now I'm forced to study either for school or for the GRE which I'm taking wicked soon. Either way activity is probably a good thing. Though I do bike to class because parking around CSU (as it is in any city) is terrible. I actually was late to the first day of class and was about two minutes from giving up and trying again next semester when I finally came across a spot. Well, I probably would have just gone to the next class, but it was super annoying as I had gotten down there about 30 minutes early so I would have time. Now I bike.

So that's it. I'm done. This was officially the worst blog post I've posted thus far. You really should not have read it. Seriously. Go back an unread it. It's mindless dribble. And it's still going! You're still reading this! I know you are because you just read this! Seriously! Stop!

///END///

If it were just that we ended up mindless, would it even matter? How would we know to care?

My Favorite Math

For no reason at all on the drive into work the other day I started thinking about my favorite math. Not anything super complex, of which there is some, but simple single digit integer math. Also my favorite numbers.

Addition:

As it turns out, one of my favorite simple additions is 6 + 4 = 10. Seems simple enough, right? Well how about if I tell you that 6 and 4 are among my least favorite numbers? Odder still if I point out that 3 and 2 are among my favorite numbers. Yet 3 + 3 + 2 + 2 just seems...stupid. I like 7 + 3 = 10 as well, but 6 + 4 just seems cleaner. Though 3 and 7 are among my favorite (if not favorite) single digit integers. I'm also a big fan of 3 + 5 = 8.

Subtraction:

I am not currently aware of any single digit integer subtraction equations that I favor over others. Really I guess it would be the opposite of the ones listed above because they remind me of themselves though in practice, not really.

Multiplication:

I really enjoy 3 x 4 = 12, again, despite the 4. Probably some latent desire for base 12 math. Though 3 x 7 = 21 is probably tops. Expanding beyond single digit integers, 21 is probably one of my favorites. 4 x 4 =16 is pretty sweet despite there being two 4s in it. And who doesn't love multiplying things by 5? Multiplying by 10 is boring. Far to simple. I know people will argue that it's not much simpler than multiplying by 5, but 5 is just so much more fun. On a side note I have a condition where settings like volume, temperature and such must always be a factor of 2 or 5. I have a really hard time setting volumes to values that are not factors of 5, though depending on the resolution of the system I can sometimes tolerate factors of 2. This has occasionally lead to arguments with The Pietras wherein he will claim I am deaf when I turn the receiver up from 50 to 55 even though he was having difficulty understanding speech at the lower volume. It's not my fault his receiver has such a low resolution that a 10% increase in the value of the number results in a 120% increase in volume.

Division:

I've realized that I no longer think of division in the traditional sense. And by traditional sense I mean long division. Rather I think of it as factorization, which is the same I know, yet it is kind of different. I was discussing this with The Knut recently and we both agreed that division is the devil. It is the one thing you always try to avoid. It can ruin perfectly good calculations. It is the only operation capable of destroying reality. It is pure, unadulterated evil.

Other:
When you get to the higher order mathematics it becomes less how you feel about what's right in front of you and more how you feel about what it describes. I really enjoy the heat equation as well as the Navier-Stokes equations because they describe two of my favorite things: heat and fluids. There are other simpler equations too such as INT(1/x)=ln(x). That's pretty cool. I'm a much bigger fan of integrals than derivatives. Integrals are just so integral and derivatives are just so...boring. Though I do enjoy d/dx e^x=e^x. That's a lot of fun and a really easy go to when you're trying to look smart in front of people who don't math for a living. Unless they have some experience mathing and ask you for the proof...in which case I'd be screwed. Something about always being tangent to their curves? Or is that the pickup line?

No one can deny that e ^ (Pi(i)) = -1 is probably the most amazing thing ever and will probably be our best chance at salvation.

The Family You Never Had

Stock photography is a thing. A very blatant and obvious thing. Used by companies to make their web pages, brochures and advertisements make the simplest most mundane tasks look ridiculously exciting or utterly impossible. But it's not all advertising. Advertising is pretty clear. "Buy this product because then you will look like this beautiful model!" or whatever. Ever buy a picture frame? Who is that person? Where are they from? Do they have a history? Forever locked in this frame, the image of a fake family. Fake though? Fake for real? Or fake just to you? Or perhaps, even real to you?

I knew a girl once. Not unattractive. In fact quite pretty. Intelligent and funny. But despite the constant advances she would get she never once found anyone that lived up to her standards. I guess you could say that her one fault was that she was too picky. But is it wrong to have standards? Is it wrong to set the bar unrealistically high? She didn't seem to think so.

She invited me over to dinner one night. It was not out of the blue. We in fact had been supposed to get together the previous week but I had had to cancel as I had landed a hot date last minute. This was really no big deal as we both knew that there was nothing more than friendship between us and she was more than willing to let me have my turn at bat. She had called me the night before to ask if I we could do our little dinner party the following night. As I had nothing planned I figured why not. She had already offered to cook. I stopped by the liquor store to pick up a bottle of pinot to go with dinner. We had originally wanted to try out that new little Italian place on the corner, but we couldn't get a reservation until late so we decided to eat in.

THE MOON!

I've often wondered about how awesome it would be to be permanently on vacation. Pretty awesome I'd imagine. Just to have one central place somewhere so you always had somewhere to return "home" to. But travel for a couple months, relax for a couple months, relax while traveling. Old school type travel too. Like actually sail on an ocean liner for the however many days it takes to cross the Atlantic. Are there ships that even do that anymore? Like not cargo ships? I would imagine not, what with the prevalence of air travel it probably isn't cost effective. Who the hell wants a two day blimp ride to London?!

Actually a blimp ride would be pretty sweet. Excuse me, rigid airship. More sweet.

But then there's the question of burnout. But would you really burnout? After all, how many times to you get back from a vacation where you saw a lot, did a lot, had a lot of fun, you get back to work and think, "Golly gee wiz, I need a vactation just to recover from my vacation!" Now you wouldn't have that problem! You'd come back from your first vacation, think that, and then BOOM, you'd be off on your recovery vaction.

What's that you say? What about peoples inherent need to work or feel productive? Well I have a solution to that too:

Moonbase.

Yes, Moonbase. If you're working on Moonbase then it doesn't matter what you're doing or how long your doing it. You have to dig a ditch for 24 hours on the moon? Who cares! You're on the moon! Yeah, all that stuff about a vacation being where you don't have to work blah, blah. You're on the moon! THE MOON! Do you know where you are right now? I'll tell you where you're not: The Moon!

Every single problem anywhere ever would be solved if we had a moonbase.

They can still reach us on the moon.

For Sale: 1 Bridge, Slightly Used

I shall diverge, but for the briefest of moments, from the more "traditional" warning methods to something slightly more...applicable.

I was having a discussion with a friend of mine over at Ask the Motherboard (which is exactly what it sounds like: a sentient computer housed in a secret government facility that rather than take control of the entire US nuclear arsenal and bring about the fall of man like it was supposed to, started a blog. To avoid having to admit failure the designers locked it in a closet with an EZ Bake Oven and the complete DVD collection of She-Ra and resolved to bring about the fall of man themselves) about why you should never, ever, EVAR buy a digital media cable over $5. As the discussion progressed, aside from passing the Turing test, it was suggested that I write a guest post about the difference between analog and digital signal, and then how it applies to buying cables. At the risk of guesting a post that went over everyone's head, I resolved to write a slightly more techie post here and translate it for there. Also because I had no other ideas for what to write here.

I probably won't get super technical as I'm not an EE and don't want to do the research that would be required if I were to start digging into things like signal processing and Fourier transformations (which I hate!) so it might be a simple copy paste job. Or not. Let's find out:

The Knut once regaled The Pietras and I with a tale of how he was buying a thing. Momentarily sidetracked onto a different story (likely involving cats) we had several beers and returned once more to the topic of him buying this thing. At the store where these things were sold he got into a debate with the sales person on why he did not need to buy the $100 Monster HDMI cable. The Knut told the sales person that he did not need the $100 Monster HDMI cable as he had a cheap $5 one at home that would suffice. The sales person pointed out that the $100 Monster HDMI cable was the best that money could buy and would offer the clearest and bestest signal quality between the thing he was purchasing and the thing he was connecting it to. The Knut pointed out that that was the most bat-shit insane thing he had ever heard as HDMI is a digital standard, that quality and clarity don't mean jack because it's comprised entirely of 1s and 0s and that as long as the cable is rated HDMI it meets the minimum requirements for transferring the 1s and 0s from thing 1 to thing 2. At this point, The Knut stopped channeling Theodor Geisel and told the sales person that he was, in fact, an EE. The sales person then sheepishly walked away and The Knut purchased his blu-ray player, went home and connected it to his TV using a cheap HDMI cable and proceeded to watch The Brady Bunch. The sound of a tiny bell ringing indicated that the cat had killed yet another rabbit.

I'm going to pause here and state several assumptions that I am making in posting this post: Assumption 1) You are not future proofing your setup. In other words you have a setup which you can easily access and change cables if necessary and not running them through walls. Assumption 2) You are not using cables over 2 meters. Assumption 3) You have things that you want to connect to each other at minimal cost.

First off, let's briefly, discuss the difference between analog and digital signals.

Analog technology uses the whole waveform. Each part of the wave is retained in it's original form. A vinyl record is a very good example of analog technology. In the case of vinyl, the waveform is actually imprinted into the record. This is why if you hold your ear right up to the needle you can hear the sound. As the needle bounces over the peaks and valleys it transmits electrical pulses in varying intensities to the speakers which make sound. In the case of analog, the amplitude (height/depth of the peaks and valleys) and the frequency (distance between them) are all variable. Theoretically an analog signal has infinite resolution, though in practice it is much more susceptible to noise.

Digital technology, on the other hand, uses a discrete waveform to transmit information. Essentially a 1 or a 0, on or off. While still susceptible to noise, the impact is far less than that of analog technology allowing for enhanced error correction, better compression and a host of other digital only features.

As an example: let's imagine an old school TV with old school bunny ears. You adjust the bunny ears to make the picture clearer or nosier. What you're doing is adjusting the equipment to receive a specific frequency. The change in amplitude is what makes the picture and sound. Notice though, that it doesn't have to be super clear. You can adjust it so that you can still see bits of the TV show, but there's a whole lot of noise.

By contrast, imagine one of them fancy new fangled High Definition HDTV Television screens with the digital cable/dish/UVerse/FIOS/etc and the fancy DVR recorder (redundant statement is redundant). I'm sure you all have seen the occasional block or weird looking bit of picture using one of these setups, or when the picture suddenly looks like a Picasso. In analog the old TV can still pick up some of the original picture because even though the signal is distorted it is still receiving bits of the original signal. But with a digital signal, when you see your setup go crazy it's because it's not actually getting any information. Because a digital signal is either on, or off, if the TV can't tell which it is because of a low signal quality, or if the error correction function fails to properly functionally correct for error, it does the best it can. Which is to just put that garbled mess up on the screen, or if it's really bad, nothing at all.

So this brings us to The Knut's argument with the sales person about the HDMI cables and also why you should never buy expensive ones. HDMI is digital. This means that the information is either going to get there, or it's not. If it gets there your picture will be perfect. If it doesn't you will not have a picture. A cable can only be rated HDMI if it meets the minimum requirements for transmitting the 1s and 0s. As such, even though they're cheap, because the cheap cables are rated HDMI, they are able to transmit 1s and 0s. The quality of the signal doesn't matter.

To be clear I am primarily talking about HDMI cables as they are the most common source of rip off in the cable market. But the same can apply to other cables, such as USB, Ethernet, coax, and even speaker cables. Unless you're transmitting over a long distance (which my previous assumptions assume that you are not) where shielding and noise are going to have a measurable impact on your signal, you can get by just fine with the cheaper cables/wires. I did buy a 7.5 meter HDMI cable once to hook my computer up to the TV on the other side of the room. I bought the cheapest one I could find, $25. Not a single problem.

I'd recommend checking out Newegg for anything and everything tech related that you need. Amazon can be a good source two, especially if you're a prime subscriber, though I find the comments from Newegg to be infinitely more helpful. Find the type of cable you want at the length you want and then find the cheapest one. I will concede that on occasion I've come across a cheap ($1-3) HDMI or USB cable that doesn't fit well, but reading a few of the comments should indicate whether or not this is an issue. And even the loose fitting ones that I have work just fine, because in the case of HDMI cables, your'e not messing around with them once they're in.

Now you should be well informed as to why you should never buy an expensive cable. However, if you absolutely, positively, unquestionably have to have it that exact moment (i.e. you're hosting a double feature of "The Room" and "Birdemic: Shock and Terror" in 15 minutes and for some reason you're only just now putting your setup together) then my suggestion is to go find the cheapest one you can at the store, order the even cheaper one, and return it when the even cheaper one comes in (unless you're one of the lucky folks who lives near a store that sells cheap cables in which case just buy the cheap one in the store).

In fact, as a general rule: never buy accessories (game controllers, cables, remotes, etc) in a brick and mortar and glass and iron and carpet and drywall and wood and tile store. They are almost always cheaper online.

In fact as a generaler rule: price compare. Everything. It's not that hard, especially if you have a smartphone. Even if you don't. Sometimes it is actually cheaper in the store (if it's a $5 part why are you going to pay $5 in shipping as well?). Sometimes the item in the store is $127.45 and online it's $124.21. If you care that much about $3.24 then...I'm sorry.

I would go on about buying $200 surge protectors...but I'll leave that for another day.

The interesting thing about The Knut is that if you interrupt his story, no matter how long the interruption, no matter if the group then disperses, he will pick up right were he left off the next time you see him. That is, if he hasn't hunted you down first to finish.

RESEARCH!

The internet has, from time to time, been called the information superhighway. Or at least it was back in the 90s. But no matter what the name, the internet is still a thing. And it serves a singular purpose: allowing constant unfettered access to pictures, videos and animated GIFs of cats.

There is a secondary “side effect” if you will to this constant feline access. And that is information. Lots of it. More than we could ever possibly need or want. Which is both good and bad. Bad because there’s some scary shit out there. Good because there’s no reason that we can’t find something out. And bad because people still don’t put in the 30 seconds of work it would take to find something out.

The concept of a hoax or rumor is nothing new. And in the days before the intercats it was often hard to get accurate information. But now we have the cat web. And things like Google.

Today I saw a tweet from Tweeter in which the Tweetere tweeted that Starbucks had refused to send some marines some coffee because they did not support the war or anyone having anything to do with it and that people should boycott Starbucks.

I found this to be...unlikely...

A quick Google query indicated that this was, indeed false. The rumor had actually once been applied to Oscar Mayer.

When I was working for Zin someone sent out a company wide email with some kind of PSA about plastic bottles. Something about how looking at them wrong will give your grandmother cancer...or something. But again a quick Googleing showed that it was false, and the professor cited had denied any knowledge of the research, and I think was in an entirely different field.

The point is, boppers, that if something sounds unlikely, inflammatory or downright wrong, you should probably Google it first before you hit "reply all."

Humanity will bring about it's own downfall. They need only wait.

What the Frack?!

I am currently listening to the single most vulgar public radio round table discussion ever. Seriously, I'm no prude but I cannot believe they're allowed to talk about this!

They're talking about public fracking, private fracking, fracking on farms and in towns. Horizontal fracking, vertical fracking, chemical fracking, group fracking.

Holy hell, hydro fracking! I can only assume that is some sort of demonic fracking ritual.

Wow. Just...wow...

I don't fracking know!

"Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman

So I've been staring at this for awhile. Haven't written anything, until now. But what to write? More on how job searching sucks? How when you upload your resume to a company they don't show you until after you submitted it that they chose to ignore all your formatting and make it a jumbled cluster fuck? (Though I have to imagine that when they actually look at it they download the file...but who knows.) Perhaps I should write about the futility of man and the human condition. Nobody wants to read that. And if you do too bad, because I don't want to write it.

I did apply to some space jobs. And I will apply to more yet. And more after that. Until, until...until...until I get one I guess.

The problem, as I see it, is that there are just not enough hours in the day. Even I (believe it or not) need to sleep from time to time. I find it incredibly annoying, but have come to accept it as an inevitably of the futility of the human condition. If only I didn't have to. I am going to start an online petition to extend days by 12 hours. The work day would have to be 9 hours, but now there are 12 extra hours in the day with which to get things done. This would have economic benefits as well. An entire shift of jobs would be created. Manufacturing production would increase because now there are 12 extra hours each day to produce things. Consumer consumption would increase because now there are 12 extra hours each day to consume things.

Let's be honest though, it would get squandered. Rather than make use of those 12 hours we would just sit on the couch and stare at reruns of SVU and NCIS as the hours tick by and the cuckoo clock cucs another koo. And then we would all come up with that cliched expression, "Holy hell, it's [x] o'clock already? What the hell have I done today?" I hate when people say that. I hate it even more when I say that. Which is all the time.

I have a bizarre obsession with time, though I am rarely on it. I find it difficult not to wear a watch. Not just because, for so long, I got used to having one on my wrist, but more that I don't know what time it is. I don't particularly care what time it is, I just feel compelled to know. This is often misunderstood as a desire to end whatever activity as quickly as possible. While this is often true it is equally as often not. I fully intend on being late to my own funeral. Though that will more than likely be because of bad weather conditions forcing The Knut to delay the launch. He might not though, he might not care. Then again, I see him as caring, not because he wants to launch me into space, but because he doesn't want anyone to say he failed to properly launch a rocket. The Pietras would probably care for the same reason. Toby wouldn't though. Because Toby is a cat. And cat's do not care about space. Cat's cannot comprehend space. Cat's cannot comprehend "outside." They are cats. They comprehend food. And sleep.

The Old Ones eat time. It will not matter then.

A New Solution

I just finished Mass Effect 3. I have no idea why people were complaining about the ending.

The games were utterly fantastic, but I do not think I can ever play any of them again. Not because they weren't amazing, but, as The Pietras put it, "It's over now, and that's how it fucking well happened."

I'll be interested to see what the "additional" ending material is going to be. Not that I think it needs any.

After all these years I can finally give The Knut Mass Effect back.

I...am done.

Four Weddings and a Messy Hotel Room

So here's the situation: You're on vacation with your family. You arrive back to your hotel room in the early afternoon only to discover that the maid has not yet cleaned. Do you A: Call down to the front desk and ask that someone come tend to it as soon as possible? B: Deiced you don't really care because it's not that big a deal? Or C: Flip a shit, order your children out of the "filthy" room and proceed to berate the maid who is in the middle of cleaning another room about how you can't believe that no one cleaned your room, that your family needs the room now, that you stay in hotels all over the world and that this is the first time this has ever happened to you blah blah blah.

I always feel a little weird whenever I cross paths with the maid in a hotel. If I'm in the room when she comes, or if I walk in on her. I don't want to be that creeper that sits in the corner and watches her clean or the asshole that pretends she doesn't exist. It seems to be a loose/loose. Except for Vegas. Then again hospitality in Vegas is completely different from most other places in the country. Hell, most of the time I just leave the "Do Not Disturb" sign up because I really don't care if my bed is made or my towels are changed. Unless I'm there for more than a weekend, then fresh towels are nice because hotel towels never seem to dry properly.

But this woman would not shut up. And her husband and kids had already walked away towards the elevator because they were "going to have to wait in the lobby because the room [was] filthy." I have no idea if she actually called down to the front desk, but judging by the way she kept carrying on, it didn't sound like it. Then the elevator came and we went away from her. Judging by the reaction of the husband and kids, I assume that they're used to this kind of thing happening.

If your hotel room is too filthy to be in after less than a day and you're not a cocaine fueled rock star, you're doing it wrong.

I do like the DC area. I'm reminded of this every time I'm there. Of course it helped that we were the high end part of the Northwest DC area. On our first walk down the street, walking past all the high end shops I was somewhat (justifiably) afraid that K Jo was going to spontaneously burst into debt. She behaved though. I'm thinking that my two main areas to look for work are going to be DC and Seattle. Not writing off anywhere else, just seems like those would be good places to be. Depending on what's available, of course. I've resolved that I'm going to have to find a job first and worry about grad school/Air Force later. There just isn't enough relevant work in the Cleveland area and I feel like I'm falling behind.

But on to the main event!

That's right, all you boppers out there! Pie and Dan are now married! They are now Mr. & Mrs. Dan Marino...or Pie Wiebke? Tom & Jane Evertt? I don't know! Why? Because Dan might have jumped the gun a little and not even let the priest finish before he tried to eat her face. It was cute though so we'll give him a pass on that one.

My mother was so happy/proud that she actually stood up in front of a bunch of people she didn't know and said words. Yes. This happened. The evidence will be presented...NOW

For those of you who don't know, my mother is so adverse to public speaking that she wouldn't even stand up at her own sons murder trial and say "he didn't do it" if that's all that was needed to get the charges dropped. Okay, that's probably not true, but you get the picture.

I also got to have lunch with The Cheese Puff. Though there is no photographic evidence of this because I'm not entirely sure it actually happened. Here's why: Last September The Cheese Puff got married on the outer banks. Flower was unable to attend as she was attending the wedding of a cousin. Alright, these things happen. And we are at that age where weddings just seem to come out of the woodwork so it's not unreasonable to think that there might be one or two conflicts over the years. We had the date for Pie and Dan's wedding awhile ago. And The Puff was excited that she was finally going to get to meet Flower. Until I had to break the news that Flower would be attending another cousin's wedding that same weekend. I am starting to think that one of them doesn't exist. If true this presents some serious issues. Forgetting all the social and medical issues that this might bring up, if true it's an extension I would have to apply to a great deal more than just a single person. What about all the people they know? Their families? People who have met the both of them, yet not seen them together? Sure they've heard about each other, but they've never met, never spoken, and how do I know that when I've shown one a picture of the other that they were just too polite not to mention that there was nothing there, or that the picture was really just me holding an iguana? How do I know?!

The job problem has been solved: Lion and I are going to open an Erotic Space Bakery.

This post to be posted at a later date...

In tribute to a recent passing I have scheduled a post to be posted 14 years, 2 months from yesterday.

Please plan accordingly.

Bourgeoisie and Breakfast Food

Food culture is something I have always been interested in. I really should do more to immerse myself in it. Sometimes I wish I could be like Anthony Bourdain, traveling hither and yon, sampling the delicacies of the world, impressed, confounded, and occasionally enraged by what he experiences whilst designing rockets during layovers. Okay, he probably doesn't do that, but if he were a rocket scientist he probably would. I don't want a TV show.

I find the concept of "breakfast food" to be bourgeois.

The whole idea that there are certain foods that are only to be eaten at certain times, to me, is beyond ridiculous. The only exceptions being custom or ritual for religious, personal, or national reasons. Such as a Seder, Thanksgiving, or the ceremonial 3:45am flapjack at the annual Paul Bunyan festival. Even still, these are not foods that are ONLY eaten on these occasions (my limited understanding of a Seder is that it's common foods eaten in a certain order with prayers, nothing that couldn't or shouldn't be eaten at other times. Anyone may feel free to correct/enlighten me on this).

I take this approach with all my meals, though I believe it to be most apparent at breakfast.

Do I sometimes have eggs for breakfast? Yes.

Do I sometimes have cereal for breakfast? Yes.

Do I sometimes have a hamburger for breakfast? Yes.

As long as you're not eating a tonne of junk all the time, I fail to see why it matters what you eat when you eat. The existence of cucumber sandwiches proves this. A concoction that was developed solely because people had enough wealth to eat it. Does that mean it's wrong? No. Not at all.

The event that was most detrimental to food culture in this country was the 50s. Seriously, go back and look at them. TV dinners, pre-made this, instant that. In an effort to make life simpler we took the challenge out of it. Now, instead of having to put any effort into anything, all Mrs. Beaver had to do was pop a tray in the oven at 350 for 20 mins and before she had time to put on high heals and pearls dinner was coming out of the oven just as Mr. Beaver was walking in the door. And if she were feeling particularly lazy she could just leave it to Theodore!

I have this thought every time I walk down the frozen food aisle at the Fintrools Food Library. Seeing those rows and rows and stacks and freezers full of cardboard flavored frozen TV nonsense makes me wonder just what we as a society have become.

I should clarify that I am speaking of food culture as a society, not an individual. I will be the first to admit I have enjoyed my share of Lean Cuisines and Stoffers Mac n Cheese because mac n cheese is awesome. And on an individual basis, if you need something quick for yourself, that's fine. There are some good tasting microwave meals out there. I am also not trying to describe the whole country under a single "food culture." And I guess it's not the culture that I'm talking about but more the approach. You go to a city, or a country place, and you find someone doing something different, or something "old-school" and it's thought to be this novel thing that everyone is impressed he thought of. I'm not trying to take anything away from the artisan who spent the time to prefect his technique and has graciously decided to share it with the world. Kudos to that guy. I wish there were more of him.

The problem is time. We're all too damn busy. We're all complaining that there's never enough time. But what the hell are we doing? Seriously, next time you complain that there's not enough time, stop and think about what you've been doing for the last two hours. Do you ever hear the Europeans complaining about a lack of time? No. You don't. Because they're too busy complaining about a lack of economy and trying to pretend that the Euro was not a terrible idea in the first place. They're terrified they're going to have too much time.

Some of you may be thinking that if we had a society full of artisan food stuffs that would take away from the effect. I disagree. Look at those food war shows, the one with the two hot dogs right next to each other and a rivalry not just between the stores, but between the customers. How awesome is that? Can you imagine if you had three noodle shops right next to each other? Each one with their own technique, beliefs. I believe that competition inspires innovation in everything including food.

The one benefit that food has over other things is that you don't necessarily have to improve on what's there.

And faster/more efficient isn't always better.

I still believe in all you can eat buffets. Sometimes you just have to eat the hell out of a plate of shrimp.

HA, see?!

Came across this after writing the previous post.

Why Job Searching is the Devil, and Other Stories

Is it just me or is job searching probably the worst thing ever invented? Seriously, I'm pretty sure it is the worst non medical procedure ever. I haven't really even started (again) and already I hate it. Though I suppose we're not talking about job searching here, but career searching. The difference between "Yeah, I can do that," and "Yeah, I WANT to do that." Sometimes you find one, sometimes the other. Occasionally you find both. Hell, even back when there WAS an economy job searching sucked. Why can't some benevolent fairy godmother flutter her way down, wave her magic wand and turn the pumpkin into a spaceship and and the mice into an Alcubierre drive? Then we fly off to Betelgeuse, prop up the Hrung, and get back in time for supper. Though let's be realistic here, we wouldn't come back.

But, back to short brass nails with circular, sometimes domed, heads. Job searching is teh suck. And then the interviews. OH GOD THE INTERVIEWS. There are two types of interviews: the ones where you know they're considering you and/or you know you're getting the job, and the ones where you know you don't have a chance in hell. Oh, three: the ones where the interviewer looks at your resume and ACUTALLY says, "I don't see a lot here that's relevant to what we do." And then they give you a pop quiz. I whole heartedly regret not just standing up and walking out of that interview without saying anything. And then there are the interviews where they keep calling you, "Tell me a little about your background...wow, sounds like you have some good experience...what we're really looking for is to hire a couple entry level engineers." Translation: "Tell me a little about your background...wow, sounds like you have a lot of relevant experience and would probably work well here however we're not willing/able/willing to pay you what you're actually worth so I'm just going to say 'entry level' at you a couple more times hoping that you'll say something stupid like 'oh yeah, sure, I'll take entry level pay' but it doesn't appear as if it's going to happen in this conversation so I'll call you back in a week hoping you're more desperate then."

I despise incompetence.

One would think that if you are a purveyor of vending machines that in turn purveys coffee (or rather a tinted liquid in a cup) that you would design said machines to dispense an amount of tinted liquid relative to the size of the receptacle. What I mean by this is an amount of liquid that sits a centimeter or so below the lip of the container thus minimizing the risk of spillage. NOT filling up the tinted liquid receptacle with exactly the same volume of tinted liquid as the receptacle, thus maximizing spillage. Then again, I don't blame the company for this. I blame society and all the cheap asses who would look at that cup and say "gosh darn it those less then kind folks at the tinted liquid vending machine company done cheated me on (Pi*h)/3*(d^2+db+b^2) ml of tinted liquid! I demand compensation of $435,327 for the pain and anguish I have had to endure knowing that my $0.65 cup of tinted liquid will be lacking (Pi*h)/3*(d^2+db+b^2) * x mg of caffeine, where x is the concentration of caffeine in the specific variety of tinted liquid I have selected, which will impact my performance and cause me great suffering!"

The Japanese got it right. Soft shell crabs in a vending machine? Hellz yeah! And I bet they don't overflow. When put your hard earned Yen in that vending machine you know it's going to fill that soft shell crab receptacle up to a reasonable level in order to minimize spillage. And a Japanese person would understand this! Why? BECAUSE THEY DO THEIR BEST! WHO DIDN'T SEE THAT ONE COMING?! Also: pod hotels.

This "coffee" tastes like warm water with a hint of crap. Just a hint mind you. Don't want to overpower the delicate bouquet of the warm water.

I'll come clean: I had to look up the volume of a frustum.

And so it begins...

So I've finally done it. I've put together a blog. Don't let the name confuse you. This is not some hipster, emo, goth whine about the meaning of existence while I cut myself listening to Bright Eyes sitting in a cafe where people cut onions in front of me in order to make me cry so I can express my feelings to the girl sitting next to me and she'll think I'm sensitive and want to date me but I'm too much of a wuss to actually ask her out...type blog.

This is a warning.

They are coming.

...we'll see how long this lasts...though I actually would like to keep something going. I just figured I'd start somewhere to see how well I keep up with it.

I'll tell you what the hardest part was though: coming up with a damn tittle/URL. Seriously! I had a lot of good ideas and all of them were taken. And the worst part was that 93.18% of the time it was some week ass lameo who made a couple of posts back in 2002 along the lines of "Oh, this is my new blog. How does this work?" They make me vomit nails. The other 6.37% of the time were actual blogs that had spanned a decent number of posts so I was okay with that. They beat me to it and actually made use of it. And that last 0.45% were a couple of names that Google wouldn't let me use in the first place.

Now obviously if I had moved to a different service there's a chance that I could have had some of those names. And if this pans out into anything that actually becomes something that may happen. However, I do not expect anyone to read this. And I don't care. It's not for you. It's not even for me. Those who it is for will know it is for them and will act accordingly.

How well do you sleep at night?

This is a test post. I will turn this post into a real post after I get some of the layout shit together.

Bear Suit Lain is not amused.