20080829

Two amusing stories: to illustrate the absence of simple comprehension skills in some of my friends-slash-acquaintances.

Story One:

ME [talking to a discussion group who had just finished Casablanca]: So, what did you guys think of the movie?

HER [blurting out before anyone else can even raise their hands]: I didn't like it!

ME: Okay, what didn't you like about it?

HER: I didn't think it was right that she was with Rick while her husband was in a concentration camp.

ME: But she thought he was dead.

HER: I didn't think it was right for her to be seeing someone else while her husband was still alive.

ME: But she couldn't have known he was still alive. She was told that he had been killed. So to her mind, her husband had died and she was just moving on.

HER: If I were her husband and I were stuck in a concentration camp, I wouldn't want my wife seeing another guy. Plus, why didn't she tell him she was married.

ME: Well, because she wasn't anymore. At least that's what she believed. When your husband dies, you're no longer married. It's okay for you to date other guys.

HER: I still didn't like the movie. I think it was wrong.

ME: ...

Story Two:

HER [a different her]: I still don't see how a Christian could write a song like [Havalina's "Proportion Thing."]

ME: Really? What makes it hard to believe?

HER: It's just so sad and mean.

ME: Well, the singer is just describing why his girl left him and he's understandably heartbroken about the whole thing.

HER: Yeah, but the reason is just so bad. She says that she's tired and she's got to leave. That's not right. You shouldn't break up with someone just because you're tired.

ME: That's true. You probably shouldn't. But that's not the guy singing who is doing that. That's what happened to him.

HER: Yeah, that's so sad. I don't see how a Christian could sing a song like that.

ME: ...

---

Here are Havalina's lyrics for "Proportion Thing," just in case you don't remember the song.

My baby left me
Just the other day
With a letter
And my bad eyesight.

I felt like Hannibal,
That poor old sick elephant—
Well not so much like Hannibal,
But out of proportion.

The point is she left me
Because I must be out of proportion.

That night it rained.
It rained on my house.
It rained on my head.
It rained cats and dogs
All that night I was in bed.

And it rained on the letter,
Because this is what it said:

I'm going away,
Just got to see.
It's not a thing about your looks
Or the way you treated me.
I'm just tired.
And I've got to leave.

By the way,
I loved you.

It all came down
To this proportion thing.
She never said it,
but that don't mean a thing.

As a kid my feet
Just grew so large.
My lips just like
A big ol' barge.

Now my baby's left.
Gone on her way.
What's a guy like me
Supposed to do or say?

20080828

So, question.

Wait. First the set-up.

So typically, when a non-Christian polygamist converts, we are careful to neither encourage him to divorce his additional wives nor to only have sexual relations with just one of those wives (at least in those cultures in which polygamy is legal). In various times past we would have but through, I think, experience and careful thought, the consensus had shifted to support these new-found citizens of heaven rather than damage lives further through the putting away of wives.

So. Question.

How should the church advise converts who are part of homosexual marriages? Should they continue as an active member of a far-less-than-ideal union, as with the polygamists? Should we recommend divorce? How do the ethics work out here?

20080827

Ostensible parents. A warning to you all. Take special note you who favour the practice of naming all children with the same initiating letter.

Sometimes naming your children with like-initialed first names is not just in bad taste. Sometimes it is just bad.

The Monk and I know some very sweet girls whose names (Katherine, Kelly, and Karly) when taken alone are innocuous enough. And perhaps even winsome. It is only when taken as a threesome that the trouble begins. I will leave the discovery of the problem wholly to your own detective's skills. I also leave it to you to speculate whether the error was in fact an error—and not just some horrifying Freudian slip.

20080826

I've been wanting to spotlight one of my favourite young artists for a while now. So I will do this thing of which I have just spoken. Forthwith.

Lois van Baarle is from the land of Dutchness. I'm gathering that she's relatively young. For one there's her style. For another there's the fact that much of the work of hers I've seen is from school projects. And for lastly, there's the fact that her birthdate hails from the icy climes of 11 October 1985. Which puts her at younger than 32.

That was math for those of you unacquainted with the concept.

Anyway, I've been following Ms. Van Baarle's work with heated anticipation via her DeviantArt account (where she goes by loish). The heated anticipation to which I refer is reserved for notification of whenever she has decided to post a new piece on the devilish website. What reminded me that I wanted to spotlight her work was this recently published composition of Eve, the first lady.

I really envy Ms. Van Baarle's choices in composing her pictures. Line weight. Flow of figure. Even clothing choices. It's all so liquid. I'm guessing that her background in animation informs some of this. I can't really pick out her other influences though. There does seem to be a touch of manga exerting itself in her designs. As well, there's some of that European comic feel governing certain elements.

(Okay that sounds stupid. As if a whole continent would have a discernible style. I guess I just wanted to say that ... uh, nothing.)

Anyway, here's a rolly montage of her stuff. clicking on the thumbnails will take you in all but one case to her DeviantArt shop where one might purchase prints if one is so inclined. Additionally, I hear that there is a 116-page book featuring the work of her and three other artists. (I smell Christmas).

Anyway, that's just a bit of her stuff. I wholly encourage you to enjoy more of her work at either:
Loish.net
or
Loish's DeviantArt Gallery

20080825

Yesterday, while prefacing the communion table, the elder adminstering the sacrament said:

...And so Paul is exhorting a man before he partakes to examine himself. Or a woman.

This was exciting news. No longer would I have my face slapped with white gloves and blush to hear accusations of "Fresh!" and "Scoundrel!" Ah sweet liberty, you have come home once again and welcomed your favoured son into those wide and broad arms.

I mean, really, what else could he mean but that Paul gives us the option of checking out the ladies in place of examining ourselves?

20080822

Book: Novel
Author: Thomas M. Disch
Year: 1999
Pages: 304

The Sub was interesting. I think I mostly enjoyed it as much as I did because I hadn't known what to expect. Let me now ruin that ability for you.

The novel mines very much a similar vein to Gaiman's American Gods. Only without any of the gods. Still, there's magic and shamanism and small towns and boonies. And the narrative is peppered with humourous notes. Really though, the thing that makes this novel work best is its shifting narrative plane. Chapter by chapter, Disch leaps from one character's perspective to another. He does so sensibly and this effort helps the reader empathize with characters who had previously been shown in an unfavourable light.

The story is well-paced and kept me interested throughout. The unraveling of mysteries and the up-tying of ends loosed within the story all worked well for me; and Disch's writing was competent enough to engage even a sense of joy while reading. I picked up The Sub as a distraction from Dave Eggers' What Is the What and Disch's authorship was a revelation in comparison with Eggers' lifeless words in the latter book.

In any case, The Sub was a fun, quick read. Great travel reading.

ASIDE:
I had read some complaints of misogyny on the part of the author. These are wholly unfounded. Disch takes an equal opportunity to portray the bulk of his characters in negative light. Male. Female. It doesn't matter. Their most visible traits are all undesirable and Disch does not cease to poke fun at them, their inadequacies, and their hypocrisies.

Rating:

20080821

As much as people are tacitly interested in my Vespa (citing gas prices, insurance, convenience, coolness, and even their nearly-forgotten teenage dreams), there's always one insurmountable barrier standing between them and their enjoyment of transportation like to mine. It's the safety factor and it's a huge burden to their understanding. At least once a week, Michelle and I will hear "Drive safe!" as we helmet up and prepare to go tooling off into the wild blue yonder. And I can't remember the last time I heard drive safe when referring to me driving a car (that wasn't full of sugared-up teenagers).

So here's the thing. Let's talk about safety. Let's talk about why I feel safer riding a Vespa than I do driving my wife's Accord.

The first thing to realize is that statistics are our friends. Nationally, for every 100,000 automobiles on the road, there are 12 fatalities. For every 100,000 motorcycles on the road, there are 64 fatalities. That might not sound like a positive but when on considers that only 2% of motorcycle fatalities involve bikes with engines smaller than 500cc (my Vespa LX has a 150 for an engine and the largest Vespa model right now is a 250), you're looking at statistics closer to 1.5 fatalities per 100,000 motorcycles. So engine size is a definite factor.

As well, 50% of motorcycle fatalities involve alcohol. One significantly reduces one's own part in this statistic by just not riding after drinking. One also significantly reduces probability of accident by wearing eye protection (the wind in one's face is nice but it will make one's eyes water).

With statistics out of the way, here are some common concerns.

Isn't it dangerous? Yes. Absolutely. Like driving a car or flying with an airline or walking in a crosswalk. Yes it's dangerous, but like most activities there are steps one can take to reduce the dangers. Paying attention is a big deal. Also, not squirreling around or showing off. Knowing what speed you can safely drive at in any given situation is important, as well as not taking risks. You know, the basic common sense stuff.

Isn't it scary driving with all those big cars? In a way, yes. And especially during my first year of riding (I've had my Vespa for three years now and have put just over 10,000 miles on it). I ride around Orange County, which is just one massive, congested suburban sprawl, filled with SUVs and other large vehicles being driven by moms with distracting kids et cetera. But here's the thing of it. The most persistent problem I deal with is cars entering my lane-space, changing lanes without seeing me. I used to think this was a bigger problem than it is.

Number one, while riding I become hyper-aware of my surroundings. Understanding danger is the first step to combating it, so knowing that each and every one of these cars around me pose a serious threat causes me to pay pretty close attention to them. Add to this the amount of space I have in my lane and I've found that I have plenty of room to maneuver anytime someone merges into me out of negligence. I also have a horn. Which I'll use if I need to. The key is riding defensively (which is a lot easier to do on a Vespa than it is in a car).

Don't you have poor visibility with that helmet? Actually, no. I have fantastic visibility. I suppose it depends on one's helmet, but generally, one's visibility on a Vespa is so far greater than it is in a car that you might even be blown away by what you were missing out on before, when you were stuck behind the wheel. None of my peripheral vision is reduced and I have no blind spots (unless you count my back—I cannot see what's on my back).

Really, at the end of the day, it's all about driving safely. About doing the best you can to not create situations that can cause you harm. A large number of accidents are caused by rider error (e.g. taking curves too fast). Don't screw around and don't take unnecessary risks and the the chance that you'll be destroyed is pretty slim indeed.

Still, there are two situations that I feel are an ever-present threat to me as a rider.

1) Being rear-ended at a stoplight. This kind of thing is pretty uncommon, but I've been rear-ended in cars before, so the threat is real enough. And it would hurt a lot on a Vespa. So, I solve this problem 95% of the time with a very simple solution (and one that is legal in California). As I approach the cars that have stopped at a light, I slow down significantly (almost as if to stop), begin riding the line between lanes, and then split the lanes and ride between the cars to the front of the row. That way, even if the driver behind me would have hit me, he now simply rear-ends the car in front of me instead. (Kinda mean to sacrifice someone else's bumper i know, but a car is just better equipped to handle that sort of thing.)

2) Intersections. People do occasionally run reds. Since this mostly happens from drivers misjudging the duration of their yellow light, these are easy enough to avoid if one simply pays attention. It's that rare flagrant violator who blows through a solid red while you're cruising at speed through an intersection that will just absolutely demolish you. But, again, this is rare. And it'd probably demolish a Smart Car, a Mini Cooper, a Honda, or Ford Explorer too. A Volvo might survive.

20080820

While hanging out over at the Ottery last week, I took note of some particular blog fodder. Namely a list of Entertainment Weekly's Top 100 Movies from the Last 25 Years (part of their New Classics series). As is often the case with EW's lists, there are a bunch of safe choices, one or two inspired choices and then some that amount to little more than bafflement. I mean, surefine, Shrek, Men in Black, Dazed and Confused, and Office Space were all fun in their own particular ways. But Best of the last 25 years? Wow. That takes guts.

Anyway, what follows is the list immediately preceded by an interpretive legend to show whether I'd seen a movie and if I had, whether I had liked it or not.

Saw and Loved

Saw

Saw and Didn't Particularly Like

Saw and Loathed

Haven't Seen

---

Aliens (1986)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Crumb (1995)

Die Hard (1988)

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)

Fight Club (1999)

In the Mood for Love (2001)

L.A. Confidential (1997)

Lost in Translation (2003)

Memento (2001)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Schindler’s List (1993)

The Incredibles (2004)

The Matrix (1999)

Unforgiven (1992)

When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

Back to the Future (1985)

Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

Big (1988)

Casino Royale (2006)

Children of Men (2006)!

Clueless (1995))

Dazed and Confused (1993)

Donnie Brasco (1997)

Ghostbusters (1984)

Gladiator (2000)

Glory (1989)

Moulin Rouge (2001)

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Office Space (1999)

Rushmore (1998)

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Scream (1996)

Shrek (2001)

Speed (1994)

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Swingers (1996)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The Breakfast Club (1985)

The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

The Talented Mr.Ripley (1999)

The Truman Show (1998)

There Will Be Blood (2007)

There’s Something About Mary (1998)

Toy Story (1995)

Waiting for Guffman (1996)

Y Tu Mamá También (2002)

Fargo (1996)

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

GoodFellas (1990)

Jerry Maguire (1996)

Men in Black (1997)

Pretty Woman (1990)

The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

The Player (1992)

The Sixth Sense (1999)

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

Titanic (1997)

Witness (1985)

Blue Velvet (1986)

Lion King (1994)

A Room With a View (1986)

All About My Mother (1999)

Boogie Nights (1997)

Breaking the Waves (1996)

Broadcast News (1987)

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Dirty Dancing (1987)

Do the Right Thing (1989)

Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

Ed Wood (1994)

Far From Heaven (2002)

Fatal Attraction (1987)

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Hoop Dreams (1994)

Menace II Society (1993)

Michael Clayton (2007)

Moonstruck (1987)

Natural Born Killers (1994)

No Country For Old Men (2007)

Out of Africa (1985)

Rain Man (1988)

Risky Business (1983)

Scarface (1983)

Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989)

Sid and Nancy (1986)

Sideways (2004)

South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

The Departed (2006)

The Lives of Others (2006)

The Piano (1993)

Thelma & Louise (1991)

Wings of Desire (1988)

---

Incidentally, of their Top 100, I haven't seen thirty-two (though I've seen portions of many of those—e.g. films like Scarface that I rented and lost interest in and Risky Business which I saw most of over the years on television, but was so disinterested that I would never actually rent the thing). The last few years have been relatively movieless for me. I just haven't been able to carve out the time like I used to.

Doing this has reminded me how very long it's been since I did a big list of something. Hm...

20080819

1) Women. Please, if there is any love in the world and you hope to align yourselves with that love rather than with the soul-sucking sinkhole of sun bleached bones and rendered fat that you seem so desperate to make allegiances with, do yourselves (and those who care for you) a tremendous favour. Stop calling your husband or other women's husbands "hubbies."

Really. Trust me. Your husband doesn't like it and the universe doesn't like it.

The fact of the matter is that hubby is a dumb word. Dumber than a bag of hammers, one might be tempted to say—though that barely scratches the surface of what an appalling term hubby is. Even inane terms of affection like Lumlums or Snookiewoozums come off as highfalutin technical jargon in comparison to what may be the stupidest word to get tossed into that vat of language stew we call English.

Seriously. Knock it off with the Hubby business. You make the angles cry.

2) If you're the kind of person who really feels the need to adopt interthing-speak into daily conversation, i would highly recommend choosing carefully the terms you employ. Some might sound cute or hip or ironic, while others just sound like you're a fifth-grader who's trying to hard.

Case in point. The Monk has recently heard two individuals actually pronounce "meh" in real conversation. This is where you, the reader, should be shaking your head, deep in the throes of pity. For my own part, I have actually heard people say in earnest, things like "oh em gee" and "el oh ell." This stuff hurts me. It hurts me right in the soul. This is what our great nation has come to. Even Obama doesn't offer enough hope to bring back our innocence.

Other awkwardlies I've heard? Powned. Gee two gee. Laugh out loud. And other stuff I have purged from my memory through the delicate and persistent use of strong licker.

20080818

As projects mount* and I become increasingly agitated slash despondent over the fact that none of my projects are getting finished, I decided at long last that I needed some sort of organizational record to help sanity reign once more. Now, the thing is, I loath and am considered one of the worst enemies of Organization. I don't take notes. I don't fill out calendars. I don't keep a day timer. I don't plan activities usually until the week or day of the activity. I don't keep a tidy work area.

Still...

So I bought a little white board, mounted it on the side of my behemoth computer and created project bars for a number of projects. I hope to see magically over the next months these bars steadily eat their way across my computer's lateral expanse. And to add a little zip to the theory, I thought I'd post a weekly up dat of those progress bars here. Perhaps to shame myself into working better. After all, that kinda worked when I was posting page counts on my graphic novel's script.

Anyway, here's the start of it:

And also, I'm going to try posting every week day over the next month and see if that's even possible.

*note: due mostly to the fact that I am incredibly forgetful and so agree to take on new work or create new projects for myself...

20080815

I was thinking a while back about the terms we employ when discussing a plurality of animals. These are often-fancifuls ways of of saying "a group of blank." Here are some examples:

a gaggle of geese
a herd of cattle
a flock of sheep
a covey of quail
a colony of ants
a pack of wolves
a band of brothers
a school of fish
a swarm of bees

You get the idea. But then I remembered the crows. The official term for a plurality of crows is murder. Yep. A murder of crows. How awesome is that?

But then I got to thinking, why do crows get to be so lucky? Why aren't all the other animals grouped according to various sins and misdemeanors? I mean, sure we've got a pride of lions, but we're only just scratching the surface here. So I thought I'd get us a start:

a sloth of pandas
a trespass of raccoons
a gamble of bears
a gossip of monkeys
a burglary of kittens
a loitering of lemurs
a racketeering of meerkats
a seduction of butterflies
a vanity of horses
a cynicism of puffins
a gangrape of marmosets
a gluttony of sharks
a potty-mouthing of hyenas
a negligence of crawdads
a gluttony of armadillos
a pillaging of otters
a poor-sportsmanship of ferrets
a vivisection of minks
a blasphemy of ocelots
a cruelty of salamanders
an idolatry of water bears
an insurrection of donkeys
an incest of warthogs
an envy of badgers
an income-tax evasion of gibbons

I think my favourite so far would have to be a burglary of kittens. I mean, really, how cute!

20080814

So here's the thing. The Monk is a school teacher and for the last couple years, she's been the private teacher for a pride of quintuplets while she finishes her master's degree in Historical Theology. Anyway, now that she's returning to actually teaching at a real school, her quinty students are on their way back to their only real school for seventh grade.

Actually, real there probably should have been in quotes.

See the thing is, I saw their school's summer reading list. This is a private school. One that hopefully would have high standards for educational excellence. And yet, the books on this list...?

• Where the Red Fern Grows
• The Secret Garden
• Holes
• The Invisible Man
• Something by C.S. Lewis

I mean wow. We read Where the Red Fern Grows in third grade. I'm reading Holes right now and it looks about appropriate for seven years old and up. And keep in mind that The Invisible Man that we're talking about is not the Ellison one but the Wells novel. I was reading Wells in fourth/fifth grade and it wasn't what we might call a quote-unquote challenge. And Lewis? I was reading Lewis in second grade and making dioramas and posters for my book reports on the books.

Is this the level of literacy we expect from thirteen year olds? I mourn for our youth.

20080813

So California recently enacted a hands-free law for mobile phone usage while driving. The law prohibits the use of mobile phones while behind the wheel unless a driver utilizes an earpiece, allowing both hands to be on the wheel. The thing is, I'm not a fan of the law.

People are bad drivers. A good 70% (or more) of drivers are not competent enough behind the wheel to drive safely on a daily basis. Millions of people should not have licenses or at the least should have their driving confined to trafficless country roads, where things like merging and stop-and-go traffic occupy wholly the realms of myth and legend.

Now take one of these Not Quite Ready for Prime Time drivers and give them somebody to yak on the phone with. A poor driver is gloriously transformed into an abyssmal driver. Is this because he has a brick in his hand? Nope, it's because his concentration is now thoroughly divided between giving lip-service attention to the road and the far more intriguing discussion in his ear about so-and-so at the office or where to go to lunch or why he has to take off work early to pick up juniour from baseball.

Now remember. I drive a scooter. It's small while cars are big. As such is the case, I am hyper aware of my surroundings while tooling through the congested streets of South Orange County.

Before the hands-free law, I was given a very visible sign of the cars to which I ought pay special attention. When I can see through the car next to me or in front of me or even behind me that the driver has a hand by their face it's like they're a snake and they have a big, shaking rattle. "Hey, look at me! I'm driving like a moron because I'm on the phone! And even if I seem to be okay for the moment, it's only a matter of time before I accidentally start driving by braille."

Now? I have no such warning. Cars will just make strange mistakes with no warning. And it's not 'til I turn to glare and the driver that I notice them paying no attention, chattering away to invisible companions. Joy.

Thanks a lot State of California. Thanks a whole heckuvalot.

20080807

The other day at work we got the cutest letter in the world. As readers may know, the place of my employ frequently gets questions of theological import from our users. These can be fun, tedious, sad, or enlightening. This particular one is among my favourites. I'll let it speak for itself:

Hello. I am sixteen. I have remained pure (no kissing, sex, boy-on-girl contact) for all of my life for my future wife, even writing letters to her to help myself. Now, I am afraid that I will not be able to be married and experience that joy before God comes for us. My question is, will there be marriage to one another in Heaven, or will we all just be friends, so to speak?

Poor kid. It's hard to really wanna say "Maranatha!" when you're a virgin. Not that the evangelical church makes it that easy on kids either, by constantly threatening the End Times.

20080802

Apparently 490 years ago, in the heat of July, there began in Strasbourg to be a fever. A fever for dance. Frau Troffea began what is now known as the Dancing Plague.

The woman baffled onlookers and those who refused to onlook but merely stole surreptitious glances. Without warning or harbinger, she burst forth in glorious, lively dance. And continued to do so long after the band had gone home. If there had been a band. Which there hadn't.

Good ol' Frau danced four to six days straight.

The worst of it though were the copycats. As an early adopter of the Dancing Plague, Frau Troffea will always find her cozy nook in history, not so the nameless thirty-four others who had joined her. And like a prototypical viral marketing ploy, by months end, 400 had entered into Frau's swollen ranks and had taken to dancing, leaping, and hopping in the street.

In the move that best illustrated the proverb fight fir with fire since that first instance where some poor peasanty shmuck saw his haycart catch alight and instantly reacted by throwing a torch at the smouldering straw, authorities and experts alike agreed that More Dancing was probably the best prescription for the dancing citizenry's uncommon torment.

And like with most government programs, dozens perished. The plague caused heart attacks, strokes, and death via sheer exhaustion. The Dancing Plague was said to be the model for which Blizzard's programmers were told to aim when designing World of Warcraft.

You may think I'm making this up. Well I'm not, as this Discovery article aptly demonstrates. Some cat even decided to write a whole book about it. A Time to Dance, A Time to Die: The John Wimbur Story.

In any case, until this very week, cause of the plague has remained a mystery, but recent evaluation of various engravings from the era (using special lenses unavailable in medieval times) reveals the probably cause of the mysterious blight. See below to unveil the horror.

20080801

One of the things I do in my copious incredibly slim free time is take contract work from a children's clothing company. I've been doing webwork for this company twice a year for a number of years now and we've got a pretty good rapport. Anyway, last March I was putting together stuff for their Fall line and the owner had asked that I display photos of children wearing the clothing lines in these vintage frames she was planning on emailing me. So I put together a concept.

Now the owner has very particular ideas about visual things—which is probably a good thing since she's designing clothing. In any case, she had something else in mind, so I scrapped the idea. Still, I really liked the original idea and thought I'd show it here. So then, ta-da!