Delta Sucks

This photo pretty much sums up my opinion of Delta (and their level of competence):



We arrived 7 hours early for our LAX-JFK flight. It was canceled. When we asked what we should do, the first agent we spoke to very brusquely said: "go home!" (a) Home is 350 miles away, and (b) we're not flying Christmas week for no particular reason, we paid several hundred dollars to go to NY and we damn well plan to get there. Then she told us we wouldn't be able to get on a flight until the 24th or 25th.

We waited from 10AM until about 6PM on a "special services" line. During the wait, we tried: (a) calling Delta, but the number was busy, (b) using the Delta website to change our flight to another NY flight, but that functionality was turned-off, (c) using the in-airport computerized kiosks to reschedule, but those displayed "you must see an agent", and (d) telephoning Hotwire (whom we bought the tickets through), who took Anu's cell number and said they'd call us back. Hotwire called back after five hours and rebooked us on the 11PM flight, tonight, the same night.

So we waited for eight hours to do something we'd tried several ways to do initially, and in the end it wasn't even Delta who helped us. It was Hotwire. All Delta did when we got to the agent was confirm what Hotwire did, and check our bags. Some passengers who had waited on line with us spent upwards of two hours at the agent's desk trying to get rebooked. Others were helped quickly once they got to the agent, but no attempt was made by Delta to sort people by relative difficulty of rescheduling them or to open the half dozen closed positions and put more staff on the case to cut down the wait. A line that could have been worked through in a couple hours if they'd staffed-up and organized it properly would up taking four times that, and during that time many people missed multiple flights to their destinations.

Also during the wait, Delta called the Police on a passenger who was yelling at an agent. He kept his hands at his sides, made neither verbal threats nor threatening gestures. Six Police responded. Had Delta merely summoned six more gate agents, rather than trying to get LAPD to handle their disgruntled customers for them, yelling might not have been necessary in the first place.

The most obnoxious thing they did was to open a shorter line right in front of those of us who had been waiting for hours. How this failed to lead to a riot, I am not sure, but it was not because of any attempt by Delta agents to rectify this insulting travesty.

I've flow both Air France and Aeroflot (while Aeroflot was still run by the Soviet government, which at the time was in the process of collapsing), and this experience with Delta is far and away the worst. The agents weren't quite as horrendous as Air France employees (who are such jerks that even other ornery French people find them intolerable), the one at the desk was almost nice to us once we waited nearly eight hours to see him. And the delay wasn't quite as bad as Soviet-run Aeroflot (eight hours instead of twelve, though it was slightly longer if you count the time from when we arrived rather than from when the flight was scheduled to leave). But the combination of factors made for a less pleasant experience than either terrible airline (both of which, by the way, are now Delta code-share partners in some kind of symbiotic, anti-customer alliance of the world's worst airlines).

I have a hard time imagining ever flying Delta again. Here's hoping they follow Northwest into bankruptcy (a company they purchased after NWA went bankrupt, perhaps coincidentally but hopefully not, following a similar Holiday season customer service debacle), and are subsequently bought-out by some company that knows how to provide actual customer service.

Save Nimby

I have a space here. Without your help, me and lots of other people like me will no longer have our DIY art space. Even as little as $20 can help.

Week 18: Little Blue Hemisphere, I Hate You

Take any exercise that's not too horrific -- lunges, marching leg lifts -- and then add the little blue hemisphere of death (which they call a Bosu, whatever that means), and you have a recipe for instant misery. Doing sit-ups on those things is plainly insane, yet we did that, too. I have no love for the little blue hemisphere of death.

We also did a usual course of sit-ups, push-ups, and various other ups that lead me to feel like I'm about to do some reps of throw-ups. Since my RSI doesn't play nice with things like push-ups, bench holds, and so on, I've also been stretching, including over the head stretches with a length of PVC pipe. The highlight of this week's workout was when Jessica malaproped that I ought to get myself a PCP pipe for home. If our workouts get much harder, I'm going to need some PCP for the pain.

Week 17: And Now For Something Completely Different

Week 17 included a normal two day gym week, which was grueling as always. We did two days back-to-back. To paraphrase Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: we chose poorly. Adding Kettlebell training was only a matter of time, since Ice Chamber was started by AKC pros (masters of sport and master trainers) so they could promote their sport (and, also, agony).

We did farmers' walks (to teach us why the wheel was invented), kettlebell presses, squats with a kettlebell (ruining the one thing I'd actually become somewhat proficient at), lunges, a bunch of cardio workout, and of course the usual torture of sit-ups, mountain climbers, and supermans.

However, over this past weekend we also did a five mile hike which was, quite literally, uphill both ways. That was a nice addition to the workout week, though the exertion may have contributed to how sick I was feeling by Monday.

And this weekend I also took the MSF/CA-MSP motorcycle safety class through CA.R.E. That was something of a workout in itself: nearly ten hours of range training in 40-50 degree weather. My four on-range Rider Coaches -- J.P., Gabriel, Roger, and Lisa -- were all fantastic. Like Jessica does at the Ice Chamber, they got me going by mixing encouragement into their critiques about my form and execution, guiding me to do a better job by making me more physically and mentally comfortable with the exercises rather than trying to force them.

It was quite a week for physical activity, especially considering that it started off with my being rather ill (and I was pretty ill last night, too, but thankfully 12 hours of sleep last night enabled me to finish the riding course successfully).

IronMax

On Sunday, my friend Max (aka IronMax) will be participating in the IronMan Arizona 140.6 triathlon. To me, this is amazing. Max is a nerd, just like me, but over the past few years he has become my physical training inspiration. His success inspired me to sign-up for plyometrics at the Ice Chamber, and to keep pushing myself even though it often is excruciating.

So here's wishing good luck to Max. I hope he completes the full 140.6, and achieves a time that he's happy with.

Week 16: Spin This

The Spinner bike (aka. Hell-on-Wheels-That-Dont-Take-You-Anywhere) reared its ugly head again. Are people not aware that all of modern society has been built upon one single premise: "climbing hills sucks"? Trains and cars to climb them for you, road grading machines to remove them, aircraft to fly over them -- you name it -- all these things stem from the human desire to avoid climbing f***ing hills. What kind of a sick mind invents a device to simulate climbing hills? Had the Spinner bike folks been alive during the Spanish Inquisition, it's obvious what their vocation would have been.

After riding a Spinner bike I am so exhausted and incoherent, I have no idea what is happening afterwards. At least, that's usually the case, but today we did another push-up like thing that involves supporting all your weight on one arm. My left shoulder does not want. Perhaps eventually I'll get strong enough and loose enough in the arms and shoulders that push-ups, and especially one-armed push-ups, don't feel like having a spike driven through my shoulder -- but until then, these are the worst thing ever.

And next week being Thanksgiving means I'll come back the following week even fatter and wimpier. Damn you Pilgrims!

In Defense of Custom Computing

The Top 500 List of supercomputers has quite a number of Intel CPU machines running Linux on the list. These are considered commodity supercomputers, even though they use custom backplanes and highly modified Linux kernels.

But several of the Top 10 do not meet that criteria, including the 3 IBM BlueGene systems that have custom chips. But the most interesting to me is the NEC Earth Simulator. This machine is well off the Top 10, in mere 31st place, but the thing that jumps out when you look at the chart is that it only has 1280 processors. In the Top 100, there are no other machines with fewer than 2048 processors, and most of the machines with under 5000 processors are based on the IBM PowerComputing architecture.

Simply dividing Rmax (which is in tflops) by the # of processors, we get 0.95 for the Earth Simulator, or about 95gflops per CPU. The #1 machine, Cray's "Jaguar" XT system, is 0.0078 or about 780mflops per CPU. Though there are other conflating factors in supercomputer design that make a CPU-to-CPU comparison difficult, a rough estimate of 100 times faster per CPU ought to pique interest in the NEC architecture. But it hasn't.

The Earth Simulator is the only machine in the Top 100 running the NEC Vector architecture and Super-UX operating system. The Intel-Linux pairing is quite cost competitive, and therefore often wins out on bids. But this is still the main advantage of Intel's commodity CISC architecture. The per-CPU compute rate is still a lot better when R&D dollars are applied to other computing architectures. By always going with the cheap solution, as an industry we're holding ourselves back. We've been stuck with the same Intel x86-ish architecture now for a while. RISC machines officially left the desktop mainstream in 2006 when Apple dumped the PowerPC architecture, but x86 dominance of the chip market has been a reality for a while. As of 2009, Intel has about 80% of the CPU market (including the mobile market, according to TGdaily), and its biggest rival is x86 clone maker AMD.

Most people don't need more computing power, more efficient CPUs, and less bloated / more compute efficient operating systems. But for those of us who do, it's a shame that so few resources are going into RISC CPU, whole-system architecture, and OS R&D in favor of trying to solve the problem with hacks on top of commodity systems. It's not like the industry is at a standstill, far from it. And sometimes those hacks work, which has all sorts of interesting results. But just imagine a 224162 CPU Earth Simulator instead of a 224162 Intel-based Cray XT, and what kinds of complex physics and earth science computations that could do.

Week 15

We're getting back into the groove at The Ice Chamber. And by "The Groove" I mean "The Pain". Aches and pains in my arms and legs are reminders of the SS-style workout that is plyometrics, and what a fool I am for doing it. Chance of death by heart attack is now at about 98.8%.

This week we did lunges, squats, lunges with weights, squats with weights, squat-to-press with weights, and of course horrible, horrible things like push-ups (aka. arm-destroyers) and mountain climbers (aka. vomit-inducers). All that made the rowing seem less horrid by comparison, but I know that's just my mind playing tricks on me. It's like people who say prison isn't that bad: they know they're not getting out, might as well make the best of it.

On the plus side, now my bicep, tricep, and hamstring pains can distract me a bit from the pain in my perpetually-RSI-injured trapezius.

Nimby needs your help

NIMBY, the very cool art colony in Oakland where I rent a space, has been through a lot financially and emotionally. The space needs financial support to keep going, especially due to the trouble their fundraising events have run into due to complaints from new fancy-loft neighbors who are trying to gentrify the area and run-out the artists, businesses and lower-income people who were there first.

Here is a missive that was just sent out by the NIMBY crew:

While NIMBY is financially sound as an art space - we need the greater community to once again step up and help us through this crunch. NIMBY is setting many precedence for art spaces as we go through this process with Oakland. We are dotting every i and crossing every t, creating a solid foundation for future art spaces to build upon.

Watch our short video, lend your support if you can, and please pass along this message. It is your support that makes this all possible.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1362561841/nimby-industrial-art-and-diy-space

How to lend your support:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1362561841/nimby-industrial-art-and-diy-space
PayPal: NIMBYLLC@yahoo.com
Tax Deductible Donations - email rachael@nimbyspace.org

Keep up with NIMBY:
NIMBY Announce List - http://www.nimbyspace.org/contact/
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/edit/?id=171530301726#/pages/NIMBY/171530301726
Twitter - NIMBYSPACE
(And as always more detailed updates on our progress can be found at http://www.nimbyspace.org)

If you can help, it'll be appreciated by a number of Bay Area artists, art lovers and Burning Man devotees: those who have spaces at NIMBY, those who attend the NIMBY events, those who enjoy the projects constructed at NIMBY, and those who are trying to follow in NIMBY's footsteps and get other arts venues up and running.

Special Needs

I was sorting through some photos this evening, and I found this shot I took of my favorite Austrian signage. It's a sign indicating special needs seating on the tram.


The seats are reserved for fat women with thick rubber gloves, Sigmund Freud, Socialist welders, and women with baby Hitler.

I Adore My 64, And So Must Everyone Else

Though the Apple ][ scored the #1 slot, the Commodore 64 did not even make it onto the PC World 25 Greatest Computers of All Time list at all (it, along with the PET, made it onto the "near greatest" list in favor of barely innovative, and (except the iMac) marginally culturally significant computers like the Alienware, Shuttle, Sony, and Apple iMac boxes on the list).


This is preposterous. The C64 sold 17 million units, making it the best selling model of personal computer of all time. In its heyday, it had between 30% and 40% of PC market share.

The C64 essentially defined a generation of computing, becoming a major force in popularizing hobbyist programming and PC gaming (many programmers I meet who are my age or older either owned a 64 at some point, or hacked on them in school -- even some who were primarily Apple ][ or Atari 800 hackers).

It defined a generation in part because it was the first computer that was truly affordable yet as good or better than its more expensive contemporaries. Families like mine couldn't afford $1200-3000 Apple ][s or even $1000 Atari 800s, but the initially $600 Commodore 64 dropped to $400 a year after its release, making it truly a people's computer. That alone is a major accomplishment in the history of computing, worthy of note (unless you think only rich people contributed to the history of computing).

And even though the Apple ][ and Atari 800 had sound and color graphics, it was really the C64 that was accepted as the the first prominent consumer/small business proto-multimedia-workstation. It was used extensively on TV especially for low budget chargen apps, helped define and popularize the demo scene, and the SID chip is still coveted today by electronic musicians.

Furthermore, only the Amiga, Apple ][, and Atari 800 machines can even compare to it in terms of long-term user loyalty. Many people still use C64s today, either the real hardware, or emulators to run beloved old games (and rediscover one's own early programming projects).

Personally, I think the C64 should have been #1 on that list. Objectively, it should have at least been in the top 10 -- not an also-ran.

Week 13/14: Just like starting over

I missed 2 weeks of workouts, and week 13 became two one-session weeks, due to illness and travel. This week became week 14, and it's just like starting over: I'm back at 99.9% chance of heart attack during the workout, and have put back on several pounds thanks to the patented "mostly booze diet" I stuck to during CineStory and Austin Film Festival.

We did some horrible thing called Bear Walks, which should have been awesome since you get to pretend you're a bear, and I'm working on a movie at work with "Bear" in the title to boot. But it wasn't awesome. It was as un-awesome as marching presses which, like most things that involve marching, make you understand what a miserable little worm you really are, Private. It also finally dawned on me: rowing is a form of torture. I was so incoherent most times we've worked on the rowing machines it never fully occurred to me until now just how awful it really is.

On the plus side, I allow myself to eat peanut butter after the workout, and everyone knows peanut butter kicks ass.

#27

The Yankees have won their 27th world series championship.

Many people do not know that I am a baseball fan, but I am. I have been a Yankees fan since I was a child. I started watching their games when I was about two years old, though my earliest actual recollections of Yankees games are from when I was about four or five. As a kid, I played in Yumas A.C. in Mastic Beach, NY, where I was an All Star. I then had my dream of someday playing for the Yankees permanently shattered as (unbeknownst to me at the time) my vision started going bad and my performance as a member of the Rotary Club team in East Hampton, NY dropped from All Star to flat-out terrible. Yet I still root root root for the home team, which for me is still the New York Yankees. Each time they win another one, I wish my father were still alive to share in the excitement. But I'm glad that the rest of my family, and Anu's family as well, are also Yankees fans and thus the family tradition goes on.

So congratulations to NY City, Joe Girardi (maybe now they'll stop saying he's a poor manager), Hideki Matsui (series MVP), Andy Pettite, Mariano Rivera, and the rest of the NY Yankees team on their win.

Lunch = Food

Working into (or, even worse, through) the lunch hour, and having lunch meetings, is an American affliction desperately in need of a cure. Our shoddy eating habits are compounded by our inability to stick to a reasonable eating schedule, and the fact that most situations that require working through lunch are stressful ones certainly doesn't help with digestion.

Personally, I think working into or through lunchtime should be made as socially unacceptable as coming to work in a Nazi SS uniform.

Jason and Frédérique's Wedding

Halloween night I performed a wedding ceremony for my friends Frédérique and Jason, at The Enchanted Forest, in Fallbrook, CA. Since I got my ULC ministerial credentials 17 years ago, I've planned to marry several couples, but this is the first one that actually happened. And it was a wonderful, fairy tale wedding -- Tim Burton style. Many of the guests were in costume, and the bride and groom exited in a hearse at the end of the evening.

Me and the groomsmen (photo courtesy Philip Wilburn)

Me and the happy couple, Jason and Frédérique, during the ceremony
(photo courtesy Dan Hoffman)

A fantastic time was had by all, and people said I did a good job performing the ceremony, so I felt pretty good about being able to help make their special day as magical as they'd hoped.

Me and the happy couple, Jason and Frédérique, after the pronouncement
(photo courtesy Philip Wilburn)

Here's wishing Jason andFrédérique a long, happy life together!

Me, Sophomore Year

Digging around some old photos this evening, I stumbled upon this photo of me from my Sophomore year at Simon's Rock College. I'm pretty sure this was early in the semester, and therefore I'm still 17 in this photo. Holy smokes.


My time at Simon's Rock was definitely a case of "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times". To this day, I still miss the place, and all the people I knew there -- some of whom I see now and then, and most of whom I haven't seen since I left.

CineStory

I had a fantastic time at the CineStory retreat. Currently I am exhausted, but for such good reasons. I will post more on IndieAuteur later -- but probably not until after I return from the Austin Film Festival.

Week 12: A Blur

Week 12 became a 3-day 2 weeks and it all just went by in a blur. I've been super busy getting ready to go to CineStory and Austin Film Festival, and doing a hugely time consuming project at work, and trying to get in some writing on a script I'm co-writing with a friend, and... uh... a bunch of other stuff. So much so that when I went to the gym I was so exhausted that the pain just sort of got muted by the general incoherence of my sleep-addled mind at 8AM.

There was something new we did. It involved doing squats or lunges and rows while Anu and I tugged on elastic straps against each other, thereby becoming each others' resistance. It was very confusing to try to coordinate two people with no sleep. Hopefully this coming week will be more coherent, so I can grouse about it more clearly.

Week 11: Back In The Saddle

Due to jetlag and illness, Week 11's 2 sessions were actually spread out over 2 weeks. Now we're back into the groove. Owing to our weakened state, Jessica took it easy on us, but alas I am still sore. And I know that's just the calm before the storm.

We did manage to work in a new torture: uneven push-ups. Admittedly, all my push-ups are of uneven (at best) quality, but these are push-ups where the ground is made uneven through the insertion of a ball between one of my hands and the floor. The purpose of this seems at first pleasant enough: to simulate fondling a breast in order to make doing a push-up more pleasant. But it turns out the real purpose is to make the push-up far more painful in one shoulder, reminding me that no matter how horrid push-ups may be, there's always a way to make them worse.

Grow Up

A lot of people I know have been having children lately. Apparently that's what happens when folks get around my age. This has caused Anu and I to consider whether or not we want to be a part of this particular trend. Part of considering this is figuring out just how much it sucks to be a kid, or have one, these days.

When I was a kid, there were plenty of lousy things about being young. Bullies kicking my ass. Girls who wouldn't kiss me. Not being able to drive a car. The fact that the entire planet was not made of pizza and iced cream.

It turns out, however, that being a kid nowadays sucks even more -- and so does being a parent.

When I was a kid, I ran forehead-first into our driveway gate (which I rarely remembered to latch, so it was always swinging in the wind) as I was chasing my beloved kite. I required stitches. I also tried to jump a neighbor's fence on my bicycle, leading me to hit the storm drain, flip the bike, and slam into the fence. I avoided stitches, but I sure looked and felt like a bruised-up moron. Among my many other stupid tricks were: jumping through the branches of a tree the height of our house (washing off blood and sap really sucks), numerous bicycle crashes, punching out walls and windows, building a treehouse that collapsed with me in it, hundreds of dirt clod fights (including ones that turned into fist and/or rock fights), and as I got older, first leaping and eventually riding dirtbikes off a cliff and into a nearby sand and gravel pit.

Friends and I also used to play Star Wars in a nearby bog that looked kind of like Dagobah, and was right next to the four dishes and radio antenna owned by the local cable TV firm. My dad used to bring home fireworks. And skateboards. Sometimes the fireworks and skateboards were deployed at the same time. I also liked to set fires (though generally in safe places), swim in the ocean, and take the train 100 miles into NY City to buy records and go to punk clubs (after I was about 12, I did the latter two unattended).

Many of my stunts resulted in getting yelled at, lectured, or grounded. Were I a kid now, any one of these things might result in my mom getting arrested and/or me and my sisters being taken away from her by Child Protective Services.

So might the fact that I started babysitting my little sisters starting when I was as young as 10 (though not for very long at that age). I was actually paid to babysit other people's kids, and to mow laws with an actual lawnmower, when I was 12. Child labor! Dangerous whirling blades! The horror! The horror!

I even got arrested once as a kid (for graffiti). The judge chastised me for being a snotty young punk, and then chewed-out the cop for wasting his time when the cop should have just dealt with it locally and made me clean up the graffiti and be done with it. Then the judge sentenced me to clean up the graffiti. The idea of arresting my mother for the fact that young people are universally stupid never even occurred to anyone involved.

I left home to go to college at 16. I did incredible amounts of stupid things between 16 and 18 (the age at which my mother was no longer legally burdened with the responsibility for my actions despite being a four and a half hour drive away). And while I was there, a friend of mine was killed in one of the first campus shooting rampages since Charles Whitman.

Was my mom negligent for allowing me to go to college before the age of majority? Based on the culture of paranoia today, I bet a lot of so-called parents today would think so, especially since something actually quite bad did happen on campus. Of course, she couldn't have known. And statistically, the chances of that happening were incredibly small. It was freakish that it happened, not inevitable.

In the neighborhood where I currently live, there is a huge State Park that you can walk to from our house in about 5 minutes. I hardly ever see kids in it. I also hardly ever see kids riding bikes in the neighborhood (once), walking around the neighborhood, or even playing in their own yards. Outside is where bad things are like scrapes and cuts and bullies and the ubiquitous* child abductors.

When I was a kid, my mom was constantly trying to get me to go outside and run around more. She wanted me away from the video games and out in the woods with my friends, not cooped up in the house so I'd be "safe". And she certainly didn't make play dates for me. If I wanted to play, I had to arrange it with other kids myself, like kids have since cavekids dragged each other out by the hair to play a nice game of "hit the tiger with a stick". Parents have become both overprotective, as well as obsessed with the idea of "preparing kids for success" and thus kids' lives have become regimented and contained.

People think they're being responsible with their kids by building these walls around them, and regimenting their lives, but they're really being quite irresponsible. In addition to the fact that sedentary lifestyles encourage kids to get fat and unhealthy, this kind of mollycoddling makes kids lazy, codependent, and spoiled. And it perpetuates the pathetic culture of victimization that has turned America into the land of lawsuits and self help scams. Perhaps, though, this constant monitoring and scheduling is just good parenting after all -- preparing them for constant surveillance and obedience in the post-Patriot-Act police state that many seem to want to turn our country into.

Michael Chabon has written about this. George Carlin ranted about it and accurately named the phenomenon "The Cult of The Child" and "Child Worship". Lenore Skenazy has made combating the insidious forces depriving kids of a real childhood into a cottage industry with her Free Range Kids book and site. And historical fiction author Conn Iggulden achieved international attention for his own Dangerous Book For Boys (which inspired the Daring Book For Girls). All this effort in order to try to inspire, encourage, and occasionally chastise parents into allowing kids to actually have a life.

If raising kids is going to mean getting arrested and sued for trying to let my kids experience the world, I am not so sure I want to do that. At least, not here. When I was in Denmark visiting my sister Katrina and her husband Troels, I saw kids actually riding bicycles and playing in public parks. Maybe in Europe, a kid can still go to the mall without anyone getting arrested.


(* Child abduction is far from ubiquitous. Based on reported statistics, while approximately 1.1% of children are reported missing annually (approx 800,000 missing child reports, out of a child population of approx 73.7m), being reported missing includes runaways, etc. About half that 800,000 number is accounted for by abductions by family members. Only about 7.5% of that 800,000 number is claimed to be stranger abductions, and only 115 (0.01%) were "stereotypical kidnappings". Approximately 99% of kids reported missing are found. So based on these reported statistics, in any given year a kid's chances of going missing with a non-family member is about seven hundredths of a percent (0.07%), and of going missing permanently is approximately one hundredth of a percent (0.01%). Even if you believe the claim that reported statistics are under-reported by a factor of 20x, which seems an absurd claim in our current culture of paranoia, we're talking about 1.4% and 0.2% chances, respectively. According to child violent death statistics, a kid has a 0.01% chance of a violent death (0.004% chance of being murdered). On the other hand, heart disease, which obesity and lack of exercise is a factor in, is responsible for 27% of all U.S. deaths per year.)

Best Band Ever?: Public Image Limited

After the Sex Pistols, there was Public Image Limited. And perhaps I commit Punk heresy here, but while the Sex Pistols were incredible, PIL was even better. Possibly not as influential, but better. Though in true "it's better to burn out than fade away" fashion, PIL did survive long enough to become less urgent and relevant in later years. Never bad, mind you, merely not as amazing a band as they once had been.


PIL was founded by John Lydon (Rotten), ex-Clash guitarist Keith Levene, and bassist Jah Wobble (that lineup is shown above). Within two years PIL started undergoing lineup changes that would continue throughout its existence -- with Lydon being the only constant over the years. While that makes PIL Lydon's band, the sound formed during those first two years laid the groundwork for the original PIL sound that held sway from 1978 to 1986 (when "Album" was released). The first two albums, "First Issue" and "Metal Box" (later rerelased on CD as Second Edition) are uncontested postpunk classics, whose sound (along with Joy Division, another band that will show up in this series) became the metric by which all other postpunk would be measured.


The often reviled "This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get" is for me, however, quite possibly my favorite PIL album. It is the first one I heard in its entirety (I'd heard "Public Image" and "Low Life" at friends' parties, and sought out a recording by the band, which I'd been informed was called PIL), when I was 11 years old, and it made a lasting impression on me with its minimalist, rhythm-driven sound. I played my first cassette copy of this album so much that the tape broke. This album, along with the nearly as excellent "Flowers of Romance", featured Martin Atkins (later of Killing Joke, Ministry, and Pigface) on drums.

"Album" is another favorite of mine, and I played it as constantly as "This Is What You Want..." when it was released. A near total change in sound, "Album" is a sonically dense, anthemic rock album layered atop the traditional PIL foundation of strong rhythms. This Bill Laswell produced album features several luminary players: Steve Vai on guitar, Tony Williams and Ginger Baker on drums, and Ryuichi Sakamoto on keyboards. But despite the sonic density and "noodly" guitar work by Vai, this is clearly still a PIL album, with the last vestiges of the original postpunk sound still poking through here and there (particularly on "Ease"). That all-star lineup lasted one album.

PIL's first five albums are utterly essential (even if Allmusic does give both "This Is What You Want..." and "Album" 2 stars -- B.S. I say, those are both five star albums). Later albums, during the Lu Edmunds (Damned) and John McGeoch (Siouxsie, Magazine) era, "Happy?", "9", and "That What Is Not", are not so essential. These albums are all good, to be sure, but by this time PIL had become so pop / R&B / new wave influenced that not much of the original postpunk sound remained. They lost essentially all of their original fans, and an increasing number of their recent converts, and the hitmaking trailed off. The sense of urgency and relevance faded, and so did PIL. Never officially breaking up, PIL has announced that they will reform in 2009 to play a series of winter shows. Hopefully this will lead to a reunion in the studio, because even at their worst PIL was always among the most interesting bands around.

Week 10A: Preparing To Occupy Europe

Today's special torment was front squats with balls of unusual size (ok, ok they were of usual size but unusual weight). I got to go from a 16 pound ball to a 28 pound ball over the course of 3 sets of reps. Oh, lucky me. The only place there should even be a 28 pound ball is hanging from an elephant.

We also did push-ups. After nearly 11 weeks of training, I can finally say that push-ups have gotten a little bit easier. When I first started, push-ups were like trying to shove the planet in one direction while shoving the sky in the other direction. Now I've finally realized that thanks to the wonders of fluid compressability what I'm really doing is shoving the planet in one direction and merely most of the sky in the other direction. So instead of 3 sets of reps of push-ups making me want to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, they make me want to jump off the Manhattan Bridge instead. High fives, everyone!

But it turns out that I am some kind of a freak, because I actually wish I was getting to go to the gym a second time this week. The terrorists have clearly won. But I'm not going a second time this week. I'm going to Europe instead, which is technically much, much more awesome than going to the gym. On the positive side, after being away from the gym for ten days I'll utterly and completely suck at everything again, instead of just mostly sucking, and that'll be good for at least a half-dozen more snarky blog posts.

Week 10: Rope a Dope

This week we added another new thing to our repertoire of pain called rope waves. It seems so simple. All you do shake a rope up and down for 30 seconds. Vigorously. And therein lies the rub. You see, I also learned a valuable life lesson this week: anything you can do, if you do it vigorously, it sucks.

The virtue of laziness is that you never do anything so vigorously as to make it suck, and thus lazy people enjoy life more. The harder you try, the more it hurts. So the secret to happiness is nonstop alternating binges of sleeping and eating.

On the plus side, I think I'm down to a 98.4% chance of dying of a heart attack each time we go to the gym. On the downside, there are certain gym activities I'm starting to sort- of like. Not only does that mean that the terrorists are winning and I'm becoming "one of them," but it also means if Jessica finds out what they are she'll make them more difficult. So I must endeavor to keep this information secure at all times.

And tthere have been Prids around twice in the last two weeks, which means dancing, but also beer and french fries. Ahh, life's balancing acts.

Week 9: No Clever Title

After 9 weeks of working out I finally have crossed the threshold and am now at a mere 98.5% chance of dying from a heart attack. I think that means Jessica was taking it easy on us today.

Earlier in the week we learned a new torment that I like to call "being kicked in the nuts." For some inexplicable reason, other people call them Inchworms, and they are almost as bad as Burpies (which suck so royally that I'll never actually do one without someone there yelling at me to do so). Essentially all my muscles were in pain after doing them. Even the ones that weren't involved had sympathetic pains.

Now I am just plain tired. I need a nap.

Best Band Ever?: Front 242

I love too many bands to have a single favorite, but if I had to go through the process of picking a favorite, Front 242 would definitely make the shortlist. They are incredibly underappreciated considering the immense impact they had on subsequent generations of electronic music. For me, their digital artwork is also emblematic of an era, one which really resonates with me emotionally and aesthetically. They're another band that I became immediately and permanently obsessed with when I first heard them, back in my early teens.

"Front By Front" is one of the perfect 80s albums -- essentially flawless, and emblematic of its era. Every song is haunting yet full of rhythmic energy, a sound I closely associate with that Late Cold War era feeling of resignation to a bleak future combined with a pent-up desire to do something about it being funneled into creatvity, movement, and desire.


"Don't Crash" off the excellent "Politics of Pressure" EP is one of my absolute favorite songs, and fills me with nostalgia every time I hear it (it always has, even when I first heard it -- it's just got that nostalgia inducing sound for me, similar to Pink Floyd's "Remember A Day" or Project Pitchfork's "I Live Your Dream"). If you asked me for one song that summed up the feeling of the 1980s completely, "Don't Crash" would certainly be a contender. ("Work 242" is also especially good for getting into a dreamy mood.)


Front242 sounds like Cyberpunk reads (as do Clock DVA, Borghesia, and several other 242 peers). It's music to write software by, and the perfect soundtrack to dystopian dreams in which you're a dark, Deckardian hero fighting through driving rain, human foibles, and the misery of a dying world to try to find a better way. It's the sonic equivalent of a targeting HUD on a black helicopter stalking its prey in the night -- rendered 8bit. Mirrorshades and goggles, armored leather outfits, headsets with dangling wires... this is the proper attire to capture the feeling of Front 242 in an outfit.


Yet Front242 is not soulless machine music. It is cold and bleak, yet at the same time full of energy and desire. Later Front242 is even more layered, creating a fuller sound that is in some ways richer than their earlier work (and in some ways, not as exciting in its stripped-down clarity and evocatively bleak atmosphere).

That new direction took me a bit of getting used to when "05:22:09:12 Off" and "06:21:03:11 Up Evil" came out, mainly because of the band's lineup change and unfortunate embrace of the Techno aesthetic in their live shows, but these (and the later "Pulse") are absolutely a continuation of the Front242 sound and unequivocably are true Front242 albums -- all but one of which is excellent (the one is the unlistenably bad remix album "Mut@ge Mix@ge"). I now listen to those newer albums almost as much as the older ones.


Machine music has taken many different directions over the years, but the Front242 sound will always be among the most compelling. If you have never heard Front242, consider it your duty to "Catch The Men" and rectify this aesthetic deficiency immediately.

Best Band Ever?: Big Black

Time to blog again at least a wee bit about things other than working out and filmmaking.

So I'm starting a new thread for myself called "Best Band Ever?" in which I'll blog a bit about what certain bands mean to me. I don't really like writing reviews, so it'll just be thoughts about why I think a certain band is great.



Big Black only existed for five years, and they wrote and released only about 70 unique tracks in that time, but their impact on music history is immense. They are one of those bands that are utterly revered by musicians and music critics, even if they never achieved massive success with the general public. This popularity among musicians means their influence on later music is quite extensive. And frontman Steve Albini went on to produce tracks for just about every hip-yet-still-musically-interesting band ever.

The first time I ever heard Big Black I was about 12 years old, and the track was Steelworker. It was slow and sparse, yet still heavy. Simple, yet compelling. And vicious. It told a story. A simple one. But not a pretty one. Big Black's lyrics read like Noir poetry. Drawn from newspaper headlines and the band's own school of hard knocks experiences, their tracks chronicle the dark corners of American society, and pull no punches. They seemed to be angry about everything my teenage self was angry about, and their intense statement of this fact resonated deeply.

The music doesn't pull punches either. Big Black's music is heavy and loud, with a simple, driving rhythm and a layer of chaos on top. Big Black sounds like a cross between a bar fight and a cheap hotel room with a bare light dangling from a swinging cord. To this day, they are one of my absolute favorite bands.

Big Black decided to break up at their height of their popularity and musical development, so that they could go out on a high. I suppose this worked, because none of the successor bands (Arsenal, Rapeman, or Shellac), as good as they are, ever came close to the sheer awesomeness of Big Black. But I still wonder what amazingness might have been on offer had they kept going as a coherent unit. I played the LP of Big Black's final album, Songs About Fucking, over and over again so many times that I physically wore out the record and had to replace it.


Big Black are also responsible for one of the rare records I want most: the original Bulldozer EP with the acid-etched steel jacket and (paper) poster. That sounds amazing. I wish more recordings came in such insane packaging.

There are many awesome punk/postpunk/whatever bands in the world, but few compare to Big Black. Reunions often lead to new material that's far inferior to the older work, but if there's one band that really ought to at least give it a go -- it's Big Black.

Week 8: Ministry of Silly Walks

Eight weeks of torment, and I'm down to a 99.5% chance of fatal heart attack every time I step inside the Ice Chamber (a wedding this past weekend, starting with hot dogs at AT&T park, followed by a lovely wedding, which was followed by a late night of partying on a party bus, and then a bacon burger all conspired to set me back into the mid 99.xx% range -- stupid me, I could have been down to like a 98.97% chance of heart attack otherwise).

Today we did a workout which included a routine I now refer to as the Ministry of Silly Walks: skips, grapevines, butt kicks, and some generic hopping side to side thing. Apparently I look so utterly ridiculous and cartoonish doing butt kicks that I caused Anu and Jessica to burt out into nearly uncontrollable laughter. Ahhh... being laughted at in the gym. Now that brings back memories.

It turns out that the interval between being six and being thirty-six proves that skipping and hopping are just like riding a bicycle: you never forget how, but if you don't do it for thirty years, you'll still totally suck at it "remembering how" notwithstanding. It starts off as a near-convincing simulation of fun, and then about two skips or so into it you realize "this is f**king difficult." Yet, it seems so easy for children -- which is just one of many reasons why children piss me off.

Fatness -- Let's Do Some Math

Why are Americans a bunch of fatasses? Let's do some math.

Take a typical fast food meal:

Big Mac: 540 calories
Large Fries: 500 calories
Medium Coke Classic: 240 calories
---------------------------------------------
Total = 1260 calories

The canonical 2000 calorie diet is only a rough estimate, one that is within about 10% accuracy for a male of my age and height, but may be very wrong for other people. In fact, all caloric intake estimates are imperfect, but you need to take into account factors like age, weight, gender, and rough activity level as this about.com calculator does. (And remember, that calculator is showing what you need to maintain your current levels, not slim down.) My wife, for example, should be eating about 400 fewer calories per day than me.

If we don't even account for the problems of empty calories (low nutrition, highly processed food that may impede metabolic reactions needed to properly consume the calories), water retention from high sodium foods, the fact that carbohydrates are burned easily and therefore preempt your body's need to draw from fat reserves, and other more subtle barriers to weight loss (and, more importantly, cardiovascular health and athletic muscle toning), we can see the roots of the problem from straight-up calorie math.

1260 calories is more than half the RDA for someone like me (a 200lb, 6 foot, 35 year old male). If all three meals Americans are eating each day are around the 1000 calorie mark, we're talking approx. 3000 calories or about 750-1000 extra calories a day for someone like myself. (And if you're doing the two Big Mac thing, and adding a 250 calorie baked apple pie, that's another 750 calories in one meal.)

I've been watching the readouts on the machines as I've been hitting the gym, and by way of example someone my size, weight, and age doing a moderate (level 5) cardio routine on the StairMaster is burning about 10cal/minute.

750 excess calories / 10cal/minute = 75 minutes

So, if I'm averaging 3000 calories a day, and my break-even estimate is 2250 calories, I'm at least 750 calories over break-even -- which means an hour and fifteen minutes of uninterrupted StairMaster workout just to break even. Most people who say that they are "relatively active" and are referring to less than an hour of cumulative strenuous walking, stair climbing, and similar activity during the day are fooling themselves. "But I walk a lot" perhaps applies to active people in New York City who may average two hours of fast walking per day or San Franciscans who pound the hills at reasonbly high speeds an hour a day (but even that's still going to be break even at best if it's not coupled with caloric moderation), but not really to anyone who just happens to have to walk during the day because their refrigerator isn't sitting right beside their TV.

The reason so many people are heavy is quite clear: easy access to high calorie foods, combined with the prevalence of sedentary post-industrial workplaces, make for people who eating far more calories than they'll reasonably burn in a day. This seems like common sense, but as the saying goes: sometimes common sense ain't so common.

Week 7: Cognitive Dissonance

I wound up going to the gym 3 mornings this week. What this bit of overkill made me come to fully realize is that I keep going back for some inexplicable reason.

Seven weeks of working out is like being put in Guantanamo, being released, and then willingly reincarcerating yourself -- six times. And paying for it.

That's the really odd thing to me. I'm paying a not insubstantial amount of money in order to go to gym class. I spent a nontrivial amount of time in high school coming up with clever ways to avoid gym class, and now, like a schmuck, I'm paying someone so I can relive the experience.

Sure, Jessica is much nicer than any of the gym coaches I had in school. And unlike most of them she's an actual athlete, as opposed to one of those "do as I claim that I did back in the mesozoic era, not as I do" kinds of coaches. But I'm still paying someone to help me relive one of the most miserable aspects of my teenage years. While I'm at it, I might as well ask her to tell me that she wouldn't date me if I was the last guy on earth, and to ridicule me in front of everyone -- to complete the teen experience trifecta.

Week 7b/6a: Sit and Spin, Mofo

Since my gym blog post last week was for half a week, today was either the end of last week or the beginning of this week. Either way, I have to post twice this week. Not because anyone else cares, but because when you start working out it becomes an all-consuming obsession. The reason for this is obvious: flight or fight. Working out is like being perpetually chased by a hungry tiger, and if you get distracted and think about anything else, even for a moment -- instant death.

So speaking of instant death, the Spinner / Spinning bike is a fascinating invention. It is specifically designed to simulate climbing a preposterously steep hill in the name of fitness.

Ever since the Trojan inventor Equus of Dardanus developed the horse, riding a bicycle uphill has been the exclusive domain of children (who are too naive to know any better), the desperately poor for whom a bicycle is the only alternative to walking (who have no choice), and fanatical cyclists (who are too naive to know any better). Anyone with the means to procure a horse, or one of those fancy "horseless horses" that have become all the rage since Baron Ferdinand von Kombustin-Enjin invented the Internal Combustion Engine, would scoff at the very idea of something so archaic and ridiculous as uphill bicycling.

I guess the inventors of the Spinner bike are SCA types who enjoy reenacting prehistoric times when people didn't have horses and had to ride their heavy iron bicycles uphill into battle, panting like a dehydrated dog as they sweated away their precious bodily fluids (tm) and stabbed eachother with lances. Some people have strange hobbies.

Week 7: Fial

Wednesday I was only 99.2% certain I was going to die of a heart attack, but I was already starting to get sick (probably some nerd plague I picked up at Comic-Con) so it was an even tougher slog than usual. I missed today because I only got sicker yesterday and today rather than a pounding heart I am left with merely a sore throat and earache. The worst part is that it makes this weekly gym posting utterly boring. So sad.

On the upside, according to my bathroom scale I've lost 16 pounds in the last 7 weeks. But I think it's lying to me to save its own hide, because I'm gonna bust that mofo in half if it ever calls me a fatty lardass again.

Cheshire Cataclysm

My entry for Austin's "Chades Challenge XX" is a photoshop mash-up called the Cheshire Cataclysm.

Patents

Whatever you may think of software patents (such as the infamous U.S. Patent 4,197,590 "Xor patent"), whether you think they're harmful like the LPF does, or awesome like Paul Heckel does, the fact remains that most companies who create software file them. As such, my employer has filed (or started the process thereof) about seven patents with my name on them (two have been awarded, I forget where in the process the others currently languish).

It is a bizarre experience to see something that you invented, and described in engineering terms, regurgitated in legalese. An invention that I'm intimately familiar with in all of its details becomes a confusing morass of gibberish. I must then go into a room with lawyers (and sometimes other engineers) and attempt to verify, explain, and defend my patent application internally.

This is a grueling process because patent applications are almost totally unreadable -- even the lawyers have a hard time navigating them. Even the ones who write them for a living can sometimes get stuck in their own language. Frankly, it's rather ridiculous. It takes an absurd amount of time to reconcile what's on the page with what I know the invention does. Never mind the parts that are boilerplate explanations of what a computer is (apparently a computer has RAM, a network card, and... I got bored after that and just moved on).

Whether or not it's true that "there's gotta be a better way" when it comes to the patent system generally, there certainly must be a better way to describe inventions for the purpose of patenting them. A human readable way. And one which doesn't make the filing process take over five years.

On the plus side, I get a plaque when the patent is actually issued.

Comic-Con 09

Comic-con is done. I didn't stare at the spectacle much, so I have no clue what's k-rad about Avatar or the next Twilight thingy. But I did get lots of cool smaller press and independent books (I'll post about the best ones once I've had time to read them). It was great to see Jordan and Bella, and thanks to Ted & Derek for letting me hang in their booth and escape the madness when necessary. Check out http://www.roseandisabel.com and http://www.derekmonster.com -- both of them do excellent work.

I also got to see my friend Allen, whom I hadn't seen in about 10 years. That was great, and I definitely need to come back down here and see him again sooner rather than later.

And, finally, some sleep.

Week 6: Owner Of A Pounding Heart

Anu is out of town, so I'm on my own with the physical training thing. Very tricksy, that Anu.

On Wednesday I was about 99.9% certain I was going to die of a heart attack by about 3/4 of the way through the routine (which consisted of a circuit of beatings, waterboarding, truncheoning, fingernail pulling, simulated hangings, and having my genitals electrocuted -- or as the CIA euphemistically calls them in their dossiers: oblique twists, squats, lunges, sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups).

This morning I was only about 99.5% certain I was going to die of a heart attack. Improvement! At this rate I should consider myself "unlikely to die of a heart attack" in about 50 weeks. I think I shall celebrate with a bacon double cheeseburger at Dick's in San Diego when I go down for Comic-Con this weekend. That ought to round it out to a full 52 week year.

The weird thing is that it's only been about an hour since I left the gym, and yet I am already anticipating going back. This is bad. It means that Jessica, our so-called "trainer" (Grand Inquisitor might be a more appropriate term) is doing something to wear-down my natural instincts for self preservation. I'm beginning to crack. This is the onset of some sort of workout Stockholm Syndrome. Soon this empathy will turn into outright sympathy for my captors, then before too long I'll even be willing to tell them the launch codes (for what, I'm not sure -- but I bet these codes launch something). Next thing you know, I might become one of them. It happened to my friend Max, so I know that there's a real danger the terrorists may win.

Evidence I'm A Huge Nerd: Part 1

Today I received an e-mail titled: "My Staff Will Eliminate Your Debt."
This is basically what I pictured in my head (except I stole an image and modded it rather than making one myself):


Good grief am I a friggin' nerd.

Week 5: Youthful Exuberance

People say that exercise makes you feel young again. They are absolutely correct.

When I was young, I felt my life was miserable. Most of my time was spent thinking about escape, imagining a better life for myself. I dreaded each morning as the start of another day to suffer through.

Now, thanks to the power of working out, I've regained that youthful perspective on life.

Another aspect of the return to my youth facilitated by working out is the discovery that I still can't do sit-ups, push-ups, or pull-ups (the only ups I could ever do were 7-ups, regular or diet).

Today we did a slew of different exercises in fast bursts. It was sort of like being beaten-up, except that when you're being beaten-up at least someone else is doing all the work.

Since we did so many exercises, many of them new to our training, I've decided to make a helpful comparison chart for those unfamiliar with certain exercises:

burpies = Hitler
mountain climbers = Stalin
pull-ups = Chairman Mao
push-ups = Pol Pot
straight leg lifts = Idi Amin
sit-ups = Mussolini

On the upside, I'm so dehydrated I totally can't cry like the little pussy I am.

Google vs. Microsoft, Again

Google recently announced their Chrome OS. In addition to upsetting my various friends who once worked at the company called Desktop.com that was trying to do the same thing (and which may or may not still be kicking around in some post crash form, I'm not sure), it is intended to scare the pants off Microsoft. I'm not terribly worried about Microsoft's pants, but some folks have pointed out some interesting questions about the Google project.

Week 4: A brief history of Push-Ups

For the benefit of those not in the know, I have researched the history of the push-up. It's original crude form was invented by ascetics in the 10th century as a form of self-flagellation. During the 20th century it was refined by the Nazis into a highly efficient means of torture. Adopted after WWII by U.S. Military will-breakers (aka. "instructors" or "Drill Sergeants") as a means of reminding green recruits that they're really not much better off than a Nazi prisoner, it subsequently came back into vogue amongst new-age self-flagellant sects going by such names as Fitness Fanatics and Health Nuts. The push-up is intended to not only cause pain, but guarantee humiliation, as onlookers realize the futile pursuit of the prone Atlas wannabe before them who -- at the whim of his "Personal Trainer," "Coach," "Drill Sergeant" or "Fitness Master" -- attempts to shove the entire planet away from them whilst holding the entire sky on his or her back. Preposterous.

On the upside, I apparently can now jump rope again. I suppose one should be thankful for small miracles. I celebrated by eating a burger and some fries, thereby guaranteeing at least one extra week of torture in terms of my quest to no longer look like the Pillsbury Doughboy. What the hell was I thinking? (A: I wasn't.)

Art Show Pieces

I am happy to say that prints of these two pieces are currently hanging (framed together) as part of a show of personal artwork done by technical artists at work:





They are digital photomanipulations, both working from WWII source imagery.

Happy Independence Day

Remeber to take time out today to celebrate and remember those who gave their lives to free The Earth from the tyrannical clutches of the Space Aliens, who did not permit Humans to send representatives to their Parliament, and whose taxation policies threatened to undermine Humanity's right to delicious, nutritious tea.

Comcast Sucks

We recently replaced AT&T and DirecTV with Comcast, mainly because AT&T would not allow existing customers to take advantage of the AT&T/DirecTV reduced priced bundle to renew their service, and Comcast offered a decently priced package deal. With Anu recently being laid off, reducing our overall Internet/Phone/TV costs seemed like a very good proposition.

Holy crap does Comcast suck!

Since we had Comcast previously in El Cerrito, which is less than five miles from our current place, we figured we'd be happy with them. This is not the case.

I have a class that is conducted via Skype. Today my connection was dropped more than 20 times during the 3 hour class. Not since the days of dial-up have I had so many connection failures in such a short amount of time. Sometimes the connection failure lasted over five minutes. And it was total failure -- I couldn't connect to any Internet service at all. And since Comcast is now also our telephone carrier, I had no phone service either. Not even 911 service.

This has been going on since the day of the Comcast installation. A classmate in the online class said he had a similar problem during his last Skype class, and Comcast was so unresponsive that he could only solve the problem by switching to AT&T. We're far away from any central office, and I know we probably won't get perfect service. We also had some connectivity problems with AT&T, but not even close to as bad as with Comcast -- I did four other Skype classes with the AT&T link with no big problems. This is so frustrating that I'm already considering switching back -- after less than a week with Comcast.

Week 3: The Slowening

It turns out that if you've been strenuously working out for 3 weeks (and you're me), that is the exact right amount of time for you to start getting slower and your aching to persist beyond the actual day of workout. Well now isn't that exciting?

We did pull-ups (which I never could do) using gigantic rubber bands as an assist. And you know what? Using that mechanical assist, pull-ups are... still are preposterously difficult, excruciating, and make me want to cry. As an added bonus, when I get worn out (i.e. after two or three wussy rubber band pull-ups), I lose the tension in my body and the rubber bands shoot my legs out in front of me and I have to cling on for dear life. Come to think of it, maybe that is secretly the exercise, and the pull-ups are an elaborate ruse.

On the plus side, I got new sneakers (New Balance cross trainers), so now my feet only feel like they've just been run over by a bus 50% of the time, rather than 100%. And a gym jacket. Now I look the part of a chubby wanker trying to play himself off as some kind of athlete.

And I finally did 15 damned rope jumps in a row, without tripping and stumbling. For someone as athletically challenged as I am, that's got to be some kind of progress. I just hope I can repeat it.

The Indie Auteur relaunch

I've relaunched my filmmaking blog, The Indie Auteur. The new host (Web Faction) seems a lot more stable, and responsive, than Yahoo! so hopefully this time it'll be up and running for a long time.

Moon

Moon was a much needed antidote to seeing Transformers 2. An excellent piece of Indie sci-fi, Moon evokes the feel of classic cerebral sci-fi like 2001, Solaris, Alien, and Silent Running (I've heard that several Silent Running SFX crew were brought on to help Moon capture that classic style). While its pacing and small scale won't appeal to most post-MTV viewers, I found it quite compelling. Made for only $5million, it's also a testament to the fact that you can make a great film for "hardly any money." If you enjoy thoughtful, slow-paced Sci-Fi, I highly recommend checking out Moon.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Having read a number of reviews, and heard from folks at work who'd seen it before me, I thought I was fully prepared for just how bad this movie is. I was wrong, and I wound up walking out.

My expectations were: a mindless joyride with an incoherent plot and some decent action sequences. A thin, incoherent plot was definitely on offer, but surprisingly so was a hefty dollop of sexism (which I had expected) and racism (which I hadn't expected). I expected characterization to be idiotic, not overtly offensive. The action is more visually coherent than the first Transformers, but (if you can believe it) even less meaningful. There are also some sequences that violate whatever rules of the Transformers world had been established (spoiler examples: a Transformer that can disguise itself as a human rather than a machine, baby Decepticons being born in Aliens-like egg pods, and a dead Optimus Prime being brought back to life with an object other than a shred of the "All Spark").

The audience I saw the film with was audibly appalled at the scene where the two ghetto minstrel Autobots admit that they don't read. Since this was part of a "plot" point in which only ancient Transformers can read Cybertronian, some let it slide, though only those two say they don't read generally (as opposed to not being able to read ancient script). Even more appalling is the scene in which John Turturro's character is reintroduced, mainly because there's no real "plot" point to the stereotyping of Turturro's family and their dark-skinned employee.

It was not long after that scene that I left the theater.

Since the film was showing at work, I went back in to catch the last ten or so minutes. Not only could I pick the "plot" right back up having missed over an hour of the film, but I was also subjected to a "final battle" in which (more spoilers, in case you care) a newly resurrected Optimus Prime kills The Fallen and destroys his sun-destroying machine instantly. No gigantic robot battle of epic proportions. Just a few blasts from Optimus' big gun, and the fallen is killed. Then Megatron runs away. Optimus unceremoniously discards all the newly-integrated parts that another resurrected Transfomer had committed suicide in order to bestown upon him, and gives a speech. So even if you can sit through the whole thing, it's all for nothing.

There's apparently some plot involving humans, as well. Something to do with Megan Fox's breasts, I think. The emotion I felt most strongly about the part of the film that's not about robots (i.e. too much of it) was a confusion over whether to feel sorry for or angry with John Turturro.

It is a shame that Michael Bay uses his obvious skill at staging visually spectacular shots, and managing large casts and crews, to produce such utter rubbish.

The fact that this film is making such huge amounts of much money is a symptom of a number of reasons why my faith in audiences, and the human race generally, has been so shaken for so long.

Michael Jackson Dead

The King of Pop, and possibly the most famous person in the world, has died. It is unfortunate when anyone passes, especially for their friends and family. However, the adulation heaped upon dead celebrities, and the media frenzy that accompanies it, makes the event subject to critique in ways the private mourning of the family isn't. Though I still fondly remember Thriller (mainly for its excellent use of Vincent Price), the rest of Michael Jackson's career (both as a musician and a circus freak) had long ago ceased to interest me in any way. It is sad that he died so young, and it will be intriguing and perhaps even amusing to observe the inevitable process of Elvisification. But despite Jackson's tragic life and untimely death, personally I was much more effected by the passing of Ragnarok the Cat. Jackson's contributions to pop music, and pop culture (especially celebrity tabloid fare), are undeniable and worthy of a nod -- but the same can be said of so many deceased artists, many of whose work was more meaningful to me personally than was Jackson's. I wish that rather than heaping all the praise and remembrance upon superstars like Jackson, some of that attention could be shared amongst more of those incredible talents who passed in relative obscurity.

Week 2 of Pain and Misery

We just finished our 2nd week of torture/exercise at The Ice Chamber, and despite the excruciating pain in my back right now, I am somehow glad to be doing this -- though only after a couple hours have passed and the most immediate agony has subsided.

Normally, when Anu looks at me and smiles, it's a nice reminder of how much she loves me. When we're approaching or inside the gym, however, my brain (which is reflexively set to high school gym class mode by impending arrival at any athletic facility) maps her supportive looks onto perceived taunts about women naturally having more endurance and dexterity than men. Today I discovered that not only can't I do push-ups (never could), I also can't jump rope worth a damn (which was one of the few sporty things I actually could do as a kid, along with swimming and riding a bike).

I've not yet experienced that endorphin high that athletes bang on about all the time, but presumably I'll eventually look forward to this rather than approaching each trip to the gym with the attitude: "well, I guess it beats dying."

Farewell Furry Friend

Ragnarok the cat was born in 1993, and passed away a few weeks ago at almost exactly 16 years of age. He and his sister Thelema were born to my friend Jason's cat Döden, and traveled with us across country from NY to CA in 1993. At truck stops along the way we'd do our shopping each with a kitten in his pocket. Ragnarok and Thelema were my constant companions from 1993-2001, when the demise of Webmind, Inc. forced me to send Ragnarok and Thelema to live with my Mom and sister Janine on Long Island. He spent eight happy years with them, staying there even after my Mom convinced me to let them continue living with here even after Anu treated her cat allergies.

Ragnarok was an impressive hunter, often bringing offerings of dead rodents to my door. He also enjoyed being a lap cat, sitting for hours on my lap or my mom's while we worked on the computer or watched TV (especially as he got older and less able to hunt). Anyone who isn't a "cat person" will probably find an obituary for a cat to be ridiculous, but Ragnarok and Thelema were with me during some very difficult periods of my life, and went on to keep my Mom company during some not necessarily great times for her, as well, and Ragnarok's head-nudges and soothing purr will be missed by all who knew him.

From The Lighthouse

We've returned from the East Brother Light Station, and it was a great time. Ed and Anne are fantastic innkeepers, and we not only had a great view and an amazing experience, but good food and wine as well. It's quite an experience to be about ten miles from San Francisco City (and less than five miles from our house), and yet feel so isolated. Being in a lighthouse on an island accessible only by boat really does feel like being "a world away" right in my own neighborhood. Especially enjoyable was sitting in the lantern room beneath the beacon and listening to mp3s of incredible readings of Edgar Allen Poe stories by Iggy Pop, Vincent Price, and Basil Rathbone. A visit to EBLS is highly recommended -- I'm sure we'll go back ourselves before too long.

Photo by Ed Witts.

To The Lighthouse

Today Anu and I, and some friends, are going to go spend a night at the East Brother Light Station in the San Francisco Bay. The Light Station was originally built in 1874 (though several of the buildings are newer) and is still a functioning signal facility, with a bed and breakfast that has four rooms in the lighthouse and one in the original Fog Signal building. It should be fun.

Week 1: First, The Pain

This morning Anu and I finished our second personal training session at The Ice Chamber. It's exactly the kind of place -- supportive and non-judgmental -- that had my high school gym been, maybe I would have taken exercise and sports more seriously before now.

In being supportive Jessica, our excellent new trainer, often asks us how we feel or if we feel good. Frankly, at this early stage, I mostly feel like vomiting and then going back to sleep. But I'm inspired to continue by a mid-30s realization that I'd rather not die in my 50s like my father did, combined with the impressive results achieved over the last few years by my friend Max, a former chubby nerd who is now a triathlete nerd in active training for Ironman Arizona 09.

My next health step: kicking my Diet Coke habit. It's the one addiction that I've tried and failed to kick, and finally doing so is on my todo list. While I enjoy being in the company of other Diet Coke drinkers such as Bill Clinton and Harvey Weinstein, I still think giving it up is for the best. Frankly, I think that my excessive consumption of the stuff contributes to the stomach pain and gas I have when working out. So if my mom can quit smoking after 40 years, I can quit drinking Diet Coke in the next few weeks.

The Land Of Rape And Honey

I'm listening to Ministry's "The Land of Rape and Honey" right now, and for some reason I am reminded of hearing the album for the first time as a fifteen year old and thinking: "I didn't know anything this amazingly awesome existed in our musical universe." Between 1988 and now, I've probably listened to this album (or at least parts of it) well over a thousand times.

Even twenty years later, it still sounds fresh, its impact undiminished by years of subsequent "industrial" and "nu-metal" stuff that's come along in the years since.

If you've never heard it, you're in for quite a treat if you seek it out and listen to it now. And if you haven't given it a spin "in years," I highly recommend that you put it on right away and remember that once upon a time, what was called "industrial" music was angry and innovative (and like punk of yore, covered a lot of disparate musical ground, not just one single sound -- in the case of contemporary "industrial," it's four-on-the-floor dance beats for "dark ravers" and all else has disappeared or been reclassified).

A New Kind of Bit Rot

My screenplay Welcome To Akron, which quarterfinaled last year in the Blue Cat screenwriting competition (as well as quarterfinaling in the Austin Film Festival competition and Slamdance, and getting past the proposal phase of Sundance Lab), did not even quarterfinal in Blue Cat this year.

I didn't change one word in the script between the two submissions. Therefore, I blame cosmic ray interference with my script.

This is my own personal example of how capricious screenwriting competitions are. Had my script been assigned to a reader more favorable towards it (and at least one professional reader who has read it has called it one of the best scripts he's seen in years) than the one(s) who read it last year, I might have placed higher this year. Instead, it went to a reader who was less favorably disposed towards it than the reader(s) last year, and it went nowhere.

So remember: the money you apply towards screenwriting competitions should be no greater than what you'd be willing to wager in Vegas, because once you've achieved a level of competence as a writer, what then constitutes a great script rather than just a very good one varies greatly enough from one reader to the next that placing in a competition is as much a game of luck as of skill.

Oh, Right... I Was A Blonde

In looking for photos of my late cat Ragnarok, to accompany his memorial post, I came across some photos of me as a blonde. I'd kind of forgotten about that period, even though I was blonde on and off for about seven years. It started with my manic panic blue washing out of my bleached hair, and eventually took on a life of its own. Personally, I liked the look, and it makes it very convenient to decide to go blue or purple, but bleaching really takes its toll on your hair and scalp. Nowadays I'm more likely to dye my hair black than to bleach it, but mostly I'm too busy with other stuff to pause and do anything fun with my hair at all.

I'm still trying to find some photos of Ragnarok, and then I'll post more about him, his eventful kitty life, and how much he meant to me.

(The synths in the photo are a PPG Wave, EDP Wasp, Memorymoog, and Nord Modular. I still have all four, though I haven't really had much time to play them since I started working in the film industry 7 years ago. Very sad. I need to rectify that particular scheduling issue post haste.)