South Park Hip

Got it somewhere. I dunno. Oh, here: www.sp-studio.de/


I tried to make it look like me. I'm unimaginative like that. (I don't know where those earring-looking things came from. I do not have earrings.)

NaNo looms. People in the forums are all excited. I'm not. Attitude. Well, I haven't posted in over a week. Go figure.

Everywhere I go, "Yes on 8" posters, signs, bumper stickers. Depressing.

People say this election is defining somehow, extremely important. Know what? It isn't. Global events are moving beyond America's ability to direct them. This coming time of retraction will not in History's light be our finest hour. But it's necessary. Recharge, rediscover.

As much as I believe he's a con man, Mr. O will make a good President. A full-D government counter-balanced by a large and angry minority of neo-conservatives will make for interesting times, not much like we've seen before.

Enough politics. See how easy that happens?

Does anyone else miss Roy's blog?

Recently I went to the 60th birthday of the place where I had my first job. For three weeks after high school I was in weed abatement at SID. Drove ancient trucks atop narrow levees and bathed the sedge and dallasgrass in herbicides. Daydreamed the entire time about space colonies. I was seventeen. I'd had zero preparation for life and was fired after three weeks. Didn't get the work concept, basically.

But I have fond memories. My brother worked there too once, when he got out of high school. Our uncle worked there for years. Our cousin works there now. And our grandfather was the Secretary / General Manager in the '60s. Close as we'll ever come to a family business.

One of those places that built this state. Most simply put, SID manages the water coming down Cache Creek for the benefit of Solano County agriculture. Built the dam that in 1958 or so flooded out the town of Monticello and created Lake Berryessa. Good, constructive, community-type stuff. (Don't you love these obscure local references, given without links or description?)

Sometimes I have much fonder thoughts of organizations like that, than of the relentless scramble for consumer and corporate dollars that the business that employs me boils down to. But only sometimes. I'm not getting soft, really.

Requiescat

Went to the Civil War again this weekend.

“During the 1860s, following a death in a family, once the funeral was over and the family felt emotionally ready, an announcement would be sent out as to what day they would be ‘at home’ to receive visitors. At that time, friends would call upon the bereaved to offer their condolences. This would allow the family to set a time when they would be ready to face others, and would allow friends an opportunity to visit briefly without feeling they were intruding upon the family.”
- The Journal of the National Civil War Association, Vol. XXX, No. 10, October, 2008

Ken’s widow wore a dark green hoop skirt and a fetching bolero hat and sat with family under a canvas shade. She was in her early thirties. When the company came to visit, in our suspenders and foraging caps, black ribbons pinned to our vests, her eyes filled.

“I met him two years ago,” I said. “He made quite an impression.”

“He does that,” she said.

We had cake and lemonade, served by a large caring matron who was all love and bustle, and chatted with other friends and family. It was interesting how genuine the moment could be in spite of anachronistic dress and manners. Well, the couple met and married as re-enactors, and she had a particular love for the Victorian era, or some aspects of it, and she was surrounding herself with one of her support networks.

I felt the sadness, as one does around the mourning, and thought of loved ones gone, and for a moment would have fallen to crying. But it was my loss less than anyone’s, for I knew him least. So I had more cake. Someone said it was the hardest thing he’d done in so many years re-enacting. I didn’t understand what he meant: There was nothing to do but be with her a little bit, show her the company that her husband was a part of missed him and cared about her. I wondered if he meant he was one of those men who find it difficult when faced with emotion so immediate and graceful. Or maybe I missed something else entirely.

We remembered him in other ways too: set aside an empty chair in camp, wore hats askew as he would do when marching off the field. People are peculiar creatures. Other than that, though, we mostly did the weekend: drank, sweated in heavy blue coats, ignited black powder in the direction of men in gray, took a rest playing dead, drank some more, listened to very old-time band music, endured uncomfortable shoes, slept in canvas tents, ate out of an iron pot, and leaned back on hay bales with our feet near the fire, tin cups full, watching fireworks go off among the warm farm-country stars.

There are a lot of parallels between Burning Man and pretending it’s 1863. Ren Faires too, no doubt; but I will have to be happily unemployed before there’s time to add that too to the mix. Meanwhile, I'm grateful to sometimes have precious moments that can be captured forever, because a time will come before we know it when they will be no more.

Almost Like Magic

Had our weekly telecom with some gents in Taipei. One of them was commuting and didn’t put his phone on mute: I recognized the train sounds, the roaring wind of the tunnel, the clack of railcars, and especially that annoying high-pitched warning alarm when the doors are about to close. An unexpected and welcome memory.

Sometimes the reach of cellular networks is magical. I could almost smell again the chou doufu ("stinky tofu" -- that part not so welcome).

Decom

Meh almost won. Decom ran noon to midnight, way down in San Francisco, and motivation was lacking on a sunny but windy Sunday. But we kicked each other in the ass and hit the freeway about two. Rolled into Dogpatch about four thirty. Interesting neighborhood. Found parking next to a warehouse turned art gallery. Walked down the street observing the wind drifts of garbage and the homeless trails leading like deer trails into abandoned lots. Went a few blocks and rounded a corner and went another block and suddenly felt like home.

 
Other sights while in line:

 
Inside we went immediately to the bar and looking down at the crowd over drinks I told a guy from Santa Cruz my sudden insight: how much easier it is to relax and enjoy yourself if you are dressed like a total idiot. He laughed and agreed. Of the hundreds of people there, the only ones who didn’t look like they were having fun were the ones not dressed like idiots.


Or at least not having a chocolate syrup fight. I would never say “idiot” to these guys anyway.


It figures that I have no problem asking guys if I can take their picture but just can’t go there with the ladies. My inner creep is in self-denial. But I tried once, sort of, from far away.


Let your imagination perform the extrapolation of erotic exultation in a youthful population.

Speaking of youth, our kids want to move away from us, can’t imagine why.


More random scenery follows.

 
Just imagine a heavy techno soundtrack, people dancing all over.





You should a gone, you'd a loved it.

Reflections On Economic Uncertainty

I was talking to one of the other parents at Scouts. We’re old parents: Kids are teenagers (mine’s almost out), we can just sit and watch the boys run things. We were talking about economic uncertainty. He has several houses paid for, but he’s still got to put the kids through college, and he’s worried. Gave me a long explanation of what the government should do that went mostly over my head. (Sounded to me like McCain’s plan but I didn’t say anything – he was as likely to be an Obama supporter and I don’t like to inject politics). I mentioned that I know it’s irrational of me but I’m just not worried. So what if I lose my job? He asked me how long I’d been at IMC.

“Thirteen years.”

“So you have some seniority, how’s that work out there?”

“There’s no seniority.”

He did a double-take. “Say what?”

“Seniority means nothing. If the project you’re on is cancelled, you’re out.”

“What?” again.

“Seniority means you’ve had a chance to build up a network, have a better chance of finding another job in the two months they give you. You know more people, have some broad experience. Of course on the other hand, the younger guys are more into the technology, more energetic, cost less.”

“So I’ll see you at Wal-Mart.”

“Pretty much.”

And that’s my attitude. If the downturn effects my customers and they start cancelling programs, our future sales plummet, revenue dries up, staff shrinks, and let’s face it, I’m not exactly one of the stars around here. I bring my unique benefits to the organization as everyone does, but I don’t stand up and lead the charge, I’m not quick to grasp the implications when shit happens (and it does, daily), I’m not widely known as a brilliant technical mind who takes charge and gits er done. This Darwinian corporate atmosphere is low on oxygen for the likes of me.

And I care, don’t get me wrong, and it does keep me up at nights. But I’m fifty fuckin’ years old and though it’s easy to say you’re only as old as you feel and bah blah blah the fact of the matter is, all the personal changes I would need to make in order to survive in an even leaner and meaner organization than this one’s already become are just not interesting to me. Feck it, y’know?

Fortunately, no signs yet. We’re actually hiring, of all things. Our business is international in scope and if the U.S. takes a nose dive, we’re not so exposed. You just never know, and fortunes do turn on a dime, and the powers that be really are always looking for ways to shake things up. Periodically they have to give the aquarium a good shaking and see which fish swim to the top and which are still hiding down among the rocks. I think this is the psychological effect of my children being on the cusp of adulthood and independence and not really needing me anymore in a material sense, but it’s all the same to me.

I’ll see you at Wal-Mart.

What, Me Worry

So remember, while McCain wants to change DC, Obama wants to change America.

Sorry, folks, can't help it. And I don't even consider myself a conservative. It's a meaningless term, like liberal: meaningless in that it deceives. And in most applications, actually wrong. Gun control and socialized medicine are "liberal"? No, they are not. Gay, gun and ganja rights are "conservative"? Well, no, but it is my "conservative" impulse that leads me to support them.

Anyway: This leads to this -- just go to the latter and give yourself ten minutes to read it. Disagree, but you'll get a hint as to where some of us are coming from. Meanwhile, I'm not losing sleep because I'm okay with Obama -- I think if you didn't get caught up in the initial excitement, if you didn't fall in love with the candidate by now, then you never will -- I'm not losing sleep because I have faith in our legislative system, quite apart from the people in it, and 2010, 2012, 2014 remain opportunities to make corrections no matter what. Maybe that's what makes me a "conservative".

Prior To Coffee

Are Russians really everywhere? I went to Wal-Mart this morning -- felt like getting a comb for my beard, it feels good -- and everyone working there had a Russian accent. Okay, or Ukrainian. At Burning Man I met a guy who had been kicked out of a club because he celebrated Ukrainian Independence Day with too much enthusiasm. I can't tell Ukrainians from Russians except by last name. But whichever, they're all over the office this morning too, moving boxes and relocating cubicles. I've remarked before that they run the Hertz franchise at PDX. Dominated our second-rate hotel in Chicago.

So what? Well, the news about immigrants is always in relation to Hispanics. But the immigrant community around here is Eastern European. Before that, it was Southeast Asian. The Hispanic community is well established. So well established, I honestly am irritated that our ballots are half in Spanish because frankly, if someone is motivated to vote, they should either pay to have the materials translated themselves, or the government should do it for everybody. Everybody. But I don't see voting materials being sent around in Russian and Farsi and Hmong. Do you?

I also got a memory card for my new camera. Replacing the one that drowned in the desert. Figured I need a pocket camera for upcoming adventures and general life documentation. Here's a picture from it.


Here's another from the ol' jobberoo, taken with my older camera.


Criminy, I have a digital camera that's seven years old! Anyway, as you can see, I have a strange job. Those paper-thin TV monitors they watched while eating breakfast in 2001 are old news. But otherwise, nothing's changed: Something is always going wrong. This whole getup exists because something went wrong. If things didn't go wrong I wouldn't have a job, or my group would be smaller and I'd have a different job, or something. Whatever. A job's a job. Beats the alternative, as my grandfather used to say about getting older.

* * *

Fun with stitching software and pretty mornings.

Shock

This story bothers me, as many do. Man kills his wife, mother in law, three children, and himself, despondent over financial matters.

What do we think at first? Selfish. Should have done himself first. Those poor children! Tragic. And over money? Most people don't have money, but they live. Should have sought help. Talked to a bartender. Anything.

Second thought? A Southern California thing, maybe? No, but suburban angst anyway. Typical unstable American with a gun. 45 years old, an unstable age.

Then details emerge: Made a lot of money, then lost it. Fired for emotional instability. Couldn't recoup, things began to unravel. More details emerge: Family names.

As with many new neighbors around here, the family were from India. Immigrants riding the American wealth rocket. Good for them, an accomplishment. If it weren't for India, my industry would be much slower: Less talent at greater expense. The country as a whole benefits from the influx of legal, focused, educated workers.

The downside: Culture shock. It is enormously difficult to transplant your life across the globe. American society, as open as we think it is, can be a cold and scary place to people from other cultural climates. The badge of success, a large house in the suburbs, is also a castle, a prison. Upper middle class American neighborhoods are sterile, quiet places. If you are not plugged in somewhere -- church or temple, athletics, something -- a terrible isolation can settle like a blanket.

Isolation kills.

This tragedy may have been a symptom of culture shock, of global displacement, of the increasing economic interdependence that is transforming every corner of the planet. Even as tensions rise between countries, so they are rising within the lives of individuals. As the third, fourth, fifth generation descended of people who already underwent these transformations, many of us Americans can find it difficult to understand or be sympathetic. I don't think the tensions can be avoided, and if a person's culture or personality discourages seeking mental health assistance, some of the tragedies may be unavoidable too.

So I don't have an answer. But at least we can look on without judgment, but instead with love, and hope that next time, love will win before anger and fear take their toll.

Notes on the Bridge on the River Kwai

I think I need to write a lot more, and "publish" it here. Somehow the process of shoveling out what I can of the crap that continuously builds up in my brain helps keep me "sane". Please don't expect I am upholding any high "standards" in this here sort of "writing".

* * *

Won numerous Academy Awards in 1957, one of the great movies of my afternoon TV-watching youth. The DVD was a birthday present and we watched it last weekend.

Both ranking officers gave outstanding performances. Alec Guinness’ Colonel Nicholson was strict pure-Army and noble heroic until he lost his bearings. He used the successful construction of the bridge as a means to maintain company cohesion, then forgot that the bridge was not more important than opposing the Japanese. Sessue Hayakawa’s Colonel Saito was a remarkably human portrayal of an officer under near-impossible demands stuck out in the jungle. I’m sure many WWII vets watching the film could further appreciate the portrait of a frustrated artist pretending to military competence.

It’s too bad they couldn’t sing the Colonel Bogey March but the words were a wee bit overboard for the mass media sensibilities of the day. “Hitler has only got one ba-a-all, Göring has two but ve-ry sma-a-all …”

William Holden was an excellent scoundrel as always, his character no doubt included to keep the interest of American audiences. In pretty good shape for being the last survivor of his initial group of prisoners, he later escapes, is bid fond farewells by the villagers who save him, has an affair with a delicious blonde medical officer, and treks back through the jungle getting hot yet demure moon-eyes from the lovely Siamese porter-girls, one of whom soaps him up in a mountain stream. This was all typical late fifties male fantasy material, of course, as played up by the countless men’s magazines of the day. But I couldn’t help wondering how many young men signed up to go to Vietnam with memories of this jungle adventure fresh in their adolescent minds.

The ending was weak. Good that Colonel Nicholson said, aghast, “What have I done?” Questionable that his fainting, dying body happened to land on the detonator plunger. Dumb that the final words were Dr. Clipton saying, “Madness! … Madness! Madness!” Inexplicable that the final scene was of a hawk flying. It is an anti-war film in its way, as any good war film, but the destruction at the end was not madness. It was to put a halt to the Japanese establishing a railroad in support of their conquest of Burma. Well, except war is always destructive and inherent madness; but one must use it to stop it.

Closing with lines as only Alec Guinness could deliver them, looking over the peaceful river at dusk:

“But there are times when suddenly you realize you're nearer the end than the beginning. And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum total of your life represents. What difference your being there at any time made to anything. Hardly made any difference at all, really, particularly in comparison with other men's careers. I don't know whether that kind of thinking's very healthy, but I must admit I've had some thoughts on those lines from time to time.”

Don't Bother With #3

Tonight should sound the death knell for these contrived televised Presidential "debates". Was it a pointless exercise or what? Both teams have so thoroughly coached their players in how to avoid creating a candidacy-killing debate moment that there's nothing left for them to say. Repeat the same talking points, the half-truths, the semi-lies, say something good about yourself we all already know, and get the hell out without doing any unscripted damage. Gag. What the hell kind of way is this to choose the leader of the free world?

Do you ever feel like you fell through a wormhole and came out in an alternate universe where things are just sort of different and wrong? How else to explain this so-called choice? They're both good men, but one's a has-been and the other a not-yet and neither has an ounce of genuine charisma. Oh, don't start the Obama chant. He never did anything for me. I admire him but he's just another guy with talent and ambition. His opponent, much the same only a few election cycles late. Where the hell was John in 1996?

Well, one thing we can do is forget choosing based on their economic plans. Nobody knows what the hell to do. All they can argue about is in just what way to lower taxes. It seems that in economics as well as in foreign policy the Democrats have shifted right to a greater degree than the Republicans have shifted left, though the Repubs have borrowed a few Dem plays such as leaning more towards universal health care and gay rights than we would have thought possible. Well, it's what the people want, more or less.

Now I can't even remember what they talked about. Oh yeah, John McCain looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and saw three letters. I keep wondering how many voters these days have any idea what those three letters mean. Wouldn't you have to be over thirty five to even remember the KGB? Much less care? He may as well have reminisced about staring down Huns in their long coats and Pickelhauben.

Tom Brokaw is a cranky old geezer.

Inevitable

Going from least to most doom and gloom ...

1. Obama will be elected President. I don't mind so much -- we simply don't know if he has what it takes. My chief worry is that he will follow left-Democratic advice on foreign policy. This will lead to less short-term saber-rattling, and to larger wars long-term. Besides, though Bush tried with his defusing of the Iraqi powder keg, it may be that the big war that's coming is simply unavoidable. History turns in its cycles as the psychology of populations ebbs and flows, and human nature remains what it is. It may also lead to a resurgence of friendly feeling towards the United States, and a serious chance at repairing the global attitude towards us. I hope so, but I fear such feelings can be short-lived. He must take the right actions.

2. Iran will attain nuclear weapons. No one seriously doubts this is their aim. Nor can they be blamed for it. The people of Iran have felt themselves under the thumbs of foreign powers for many long years, most recently and egregiously those of the British and the Americans. They need to come into their own and master their own affairs, and to join the club with India and Pakistan is an obvious step. Syria, Egypt, Venezuela and Brazil will in time follow suit. Once a technology exists, it cannot be held down forever. The answer, then, to save humanity from extinction, is to hope not that we can stop proliferation (though we should never stop working on that), but to work towards the day when every nation, especially every nation wealthy enough to build a nuclear weapons industry, is responsive enough to its own people such that fear-mongering and warlike nationalism are never deemed necessary.

3. There will be a major, population-redistributing war within our lifetimes. The above aim, that peaceful social systems can take root and grow in every industrialized nation, will not happen in time to prevent it. The post-Cold War rise of intense nationalism mixed with the power focused by the global energy economy will lead to tensions that only war can release. Nor can we simply blame the Russians, the Iranians, the Israelis, the Chinese, or the Republicans for this. One reason (one of many): It is no coincidence that the population of the U.S.A. experiences a war that threatens its government's existence every eighty years or so. There are complex social, mob-psychological and economic systems at work which make this so. This doesn't make what happens our doing: It only assures that the American population, which has some influence in the running of its own government and reacts to events in certain ways as a function of generational timelines, will react (I predict in the early 2020s) such that global war results. By then, you and I will agree there is no alternative, as horrible as the idea may seem today.

* * *

Draw your own conclusions*. Mine are that:

A) Humanity is best served by commitments within the hearts of all people to individual liberty. Not individualism, necessarily -- many well-meaning socialist types regard extreme individualism as the problem. But we can agree that every individual should never be denied a certain level of self-determination;

B) Only the United States among major powers has encoded in its soul a commitment to this ideal -- that Mankind is endowed by his Creator (which I personally interpret as the ineffable evolutionary processes that led us to sentience) with certain inalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;

C) Institutions that survive the coming global war must include the United States, not in the interests of nationalism (which is a relatively meaningless term to any American) but in the interests of humanity; and to this end the U.S. must be strongly positioned when it begins. This requires we continue to take action in the global arena not so much that we are everybody's friend, but so that while we are admired by those who appreciate freedom we are also respected as willing to take strong measures to protect our own strategic interests.

Or to put it really simply: Sometimes we can justify the bad things the U.S. does because we must survive and be strong "for the good of mankind".

I am well aware how jingoistic if not outright fascist that looks, because the same wording could justify anything -- conquest of any nation, as has happened in the past, more than once, more than twice. The real challenge is in making the choices carefully and for the right reasons, which in turn requires maintaining focus on what is "right". Bush tried to change the rules with Iraq: Replace a dictator with a chance at democracy rather than keep the dictator on a golden leash. But too many things went wrong, too many self-interested parties were needed for the enterprise to have a chance, and our handling of Iran and Iraq in the preceding decades (not to mention Israel) guaranteed there'd be little to no trust in our intentions.

So, here we go: Roll the bones.

* - The conclusion that I am either batshit crazy or bonehead stupid will be excused on the grounds that no one knows exactly what anyone else knows and I've been called those things online far too often to worry about it anyway.

Crumpled Paper Philosophy

It was in the middle of the corridor as I came in to work. My hands were full and it looked grody so I left it there.

Second time I saw it I had coffee and bagel in my hands and let it lie.

Third time I was on my way to a meeting.

Fourth time, it still looked grody, all crumpled and kind of stained and I was headed for the stairs, no trashcans there.

Fifth time, I had come back up cause I forgot my car keys, which I need to get my gym bag, and it was still there, brushed off to the side, three and a half full hours since I first saw it.

Who sees a crumpled piece of paper on the floor and just leaves it there? What a bunch of slobs. Finally *I* had to pick it up and take it to a trash can. Sheesh.

Fleeting Moments of Meh

I would never have predicted this but my attitude about Burning Man right now is Been There Done That and the Decom next weekend just doesn’t tickle my fancy a whole lot. But that doesn’t make a whole lotta sense. I thought my gig at this stage in life was at least in part to bring out the inner dance art festival revelry guy, the inner hippie child, the emergent sage with the color in his beard and the twinkle in his eye and go grin in the fire dance firelight taking joy and bringing joy in more or less equal measures. Yes. Yes, that must be right. So what is this reluctance, this can’t be botheredness, this fleeting moment of meh that has my wife wondering how the hell she’s supposed to plan anything, huh? Huh?

An instant of laziness, that must be what it is, a momentary disinterest in San Francisco’s freezing cold fog and sea wind, but no. I’ve been there done that a thousand times and never tired of it, never, nor could I ever. There’s something else, there must be, and I know it isn’t the fact that I’m heartily sick and tired of smug long-haired Hippies Generation 2.0 with their hoodies and iPods and grayless beards and that youthful sense of entitlement that has annoyed crusty old fuckers like me since fifty years after the dawn of time, no, that ain’t it. Nor is it the gracefully aging New Agers with their sun-wrinkled faces glowing in the hard-won victorious recognition that here in the waning days of the Dark Age of Bush everything they’ve been saying about oil capitalism and the military state and its industrial complex is finally seen by everyone else to be true. No, no, they don’t bother me, I quit the GOP a year ago or so, I’m over that, yeah I am. Really. Nor am I annoyed by the forced smiles of people who were never There and are desperate to find just for a moment that sense of happiness and belonging they're sure would be theirs if only, if only, and suddenly it's up to me to let it happen. No, I don't have that bad an attitude. Nor am I in any way tweaked that to get to this thing I will have to a) wear some ridiculous costume of the sort I happily wore out in the desert but just am not in the right mind-state for here in the default world and b) will have to wear the damn thing while riding BART and other public transpo to get to this street faire somewhere south of Pac Bell Park. No, no, no … Memories of ridicule riding the bus to an SCA event when seventeen years old while wearing borrowed tights doesn’t play into that at all, no.

No. So, yeah. Just a fleeting moment of meh. There will be others but I’m sure we’ll probably go to this thing next weekend anyhow.

Sunday Sweep-out

So much sadness.

“Don’t you want to play with me anymore?”

No. You’re a video camera we bought in 1989. You broke when Sk8r dropped you in, I dunno, 2000. You were so much better than your replacement, better features, better quality. But you didn’t work anymore. Been in a box ever since.

No. You’re a cable box a friend of mine reprogrammed in 1993 so it would get the Playboy Channel. But after a few years the cable company sent a signal you couldn’t deal with and you didn’t work anymore. Been in a box ever since.

No. You’re a cell phone from the ‘90s. You’re a friggin’ brick with buttons. Been in a box-- Wait, you’re hella retro. Children in future years will be amused and amazed at your girth. Yes, you can stay.

A three-foot stack of stereo receivers with blown output amps or noisy balance controls, long-obsolete VHS video recorders, the CD player I bought my then-girlfriend now-wife in 1985, a VHS-C camera my dad passed down, and – OMG! – a pair of EPI speakers I bought off a chemist at the refinery I worked at in 1980.

Still alive, watching me sadly.

“Is it really time to go?”

“Yes, I think so. Don’t be scared.” I try to smile.

How do we manage to keep so much … stuff?

There’s an impulse. “It still works.” “It was cool once.” This stuff looks so … not broken. And yet. Does it really do us any good to keep it? Does it?

Got a scanner here: an ISA bus card with a little doodad that hooks onto the carriage of an Epson line printer. When it was made, Reagan was still president, and it’s been obsolete since Clinton’s first term at the very latest. Ridiculous.

So it’ll all go. Call some ewaste recycler or other to come pick it up. Lighten the load. It’s all good. So why does it almost make me sad? Something weird about unfulfilled potential? A need to use things until they are literally driven into the ground? Or did I see one too many stupid animations about cute robots and talking toasters abandoned like unwanted orphans when their families move away, and some stupid part of my brain wants to save everybody, even the inanimate? No matter. Out! Don’t be scared! Git!

But first, some cannibalism. I did have fun taking the old video camera apart. I wanted the lenses. Yes, fun! A screwdriver is all you need. Now the bits are in a box, and those lenses, well, they're still good. I’ll think of something.

Randombly

So I want the Cubs to come back and beat the Dodgers and I want that real bad. I also want the Red Sox to beat the Angels. Why do you care? Cuz I'm a California boy and you think I'd want it the other way round. But no! You wrong!

The weather turned. Last weekend I could smell it in the air. It was still in the nineties as we walked around Denio's, but there was a hint of a chill, not a real chill, but a sort of fragrance of winter, tickling the olfactory nerves. Maybe I sensed the arctic winds begin to stir in their homes far north. Anyway, it's actually cloudy today, and there was a sprinkle of rain last night. Wonder of wonders!

I find it almost impossible to write these days. All right, I find it almost impossible to concentrate and do anything. Fortunately I have a job so frantic with reactive multitasking that for any given project I'm not getting anywhere on I have at least five others to blame for it. I'm an old hand at playing that game but yes, you must accomplish something eventually.

Denio's was a trip. Rows and rows of junk being hoarded and maybe occasionally sold by rows and rows of sad sacks from Mexico and Oklahoma and Taiwan whose stories I wish I knew ... but I'm not the interviewer type. The place was so overwhelmed with ratty furniture and lawnmower engine parts it reminded me of my garage. Kind of gave me an idea: Maybe I really could get rid of some of my own crap. Are there really people who want twenty-five year old stereo equipment?

I'm reading L.A. Confidential and I think Ellroy's writing is destroying my mind.

I wrote this to cleanse some of the political hackery I indulge in, which, if you are aware of my thoughts at all, is another sign that I'm going crazy. I will be so glad when the next Prez gets sworn in and we can start worrying about the damage he will do for real.

So I grew a beard.

Veep Debate Tonight

I cringe.

The media focuses attention in order to maximize viewership and profit, and so the images of all politicians are distorted. My impression of Biden was wrong, a product of the mass marketing of minutiae. His so-called gaffes are real enough, but so what? Do we want leaders, or performers? Likewise I bristle at the giddiness with which some segments criticize Palin. She's a remarkable person. So what if she's no good at bursting through her handlers' cautions and just being herself, and that when she does, the D.C.-centric media marketers can't grasp what they see? She's a Westerner: I understand her better than I do Katie Couric.

Still and all, it will be a strange and ugly show. They've scheduled a car crash for six o'clock tonight and we just can't look away. The run-up to global power presented as circus sideshow. Well, but who knows. Maybe a thousand years from now Americans will best be remembered for introducing the bizarre customs of show business to the process of selecting global leaders. A sort of reminder for humanity not yet born to not to take this shit so damn seriously.

I might miss it anyway. I've a meeting with Taiwan from five to six, no time to get home for it. I may have to sit here and watch it on my computer. How pathetic is that?