I Hate Christmas, Part 2

Well, the annual holiday fiasco is finally over and I’m safely back in the Snorklewacker Cave. Actually, the fiasco rating was quite low this year; much lower than it’s been in the past. One major reason for the relatively low level of stress was that we flew down to the family homesteads instead of driving—no 10 hours of slogging down the East Coast Megalopolis through holiday traffic. Just a couple hours of JetBlue entertaining me with XM radio. Why have we not been flying every year?? Also, the family strife and drama was at a minimum this year for some reason. Overall I managed to see three siblings, three nephews, the new(ish) niece, three siblings-in-law, one parent, one step-parent, two in-laws, and four friends over six days. Whew.
As for gifts, I simply must call out these two hideous apple figurine things for special mockery. Aren’t they awful? Egads. Anybody who wants ’em, they are yours, yours, yours. I ship internationally.

Justin Timberlake in a box

Thanks to Danielle for dropping a dime on this one! NSFW. What are you doing surfing my blog from work, anyway, ya slacker?

I Hate Christmas, Part 1

I need to buy a generic gift for the office Yankee swap on Thursday. At the moment I’m nearly homicidally irritated with half of my co-workers, and therefore not interested in giving any of them a gift, and friendly enough with the other half to know that they are dreading the swap just as much as I am. Blah, what to buy? At this point I think the default is food, although that just screams uninspired. Last year somebody tried the ultimate tacky move and unwrapped his own present. (Although he didn’t count on me taking it from him, heheh!) Hmph, I’m not feeling the holiday cheer over here. Christmas is such a pain in the ass. Well, except for the proliferation of chocolate. But I refuse to look for an upside while I’m in this cranky mood.

Number nine, number nine

My oldest nephew turned nine years old yesterday. Nine! Hell, I vividly remember being nine.

• My oldest sister went to college (I drove down with my parents to move her into the dorm)


• I was in fourth grade, which was when I met my first real best friend


• My 27-year-old (!) somewhat hippie teacher read The Hobbit to us in class


• I learned long division—I remember being so crushed when I found out remainders were just a crutch we’d have to learn to live without


• I procrastinated so long on my science project, which was to build a model of the solar system, that I ended up with one of the crappiest ones in the class


• One of my classmates would solve your Rubik’s Cube for a price (geek hustler!)

The week of my ninth birthday, the #1 pop song was “Centerfold” by J. Geils Band, and E.T. came out three months later (I never saw it, though, can you believe it!). And I should mention that Elvis Costello’s Imperial Bedroom also came out that summer, although I didn’t become hip enough to notice that one until around eight years later.

Nine! So old, so young. Freaky to think about it.

Hieronymus Bosch in a down parka

It’s been cold outside today. Cold in an empty-void-of-outer-space kind of way. I was out there wrapped in my warmest coat, two hats, hands inside gloves inside pockets and I could tell you exactly which square inches of my body were not covered in enough layers. (Ankles, bridge of the nose, toes.) And it’s times like that when you begin to grasp the speck-like insignificance of humanity, that the very air around you is not your friend as it tries to suck the life out of your body and the heat out of your skin. It makes me glad that medieval artists didn’t know about physics, because if they had, the center of the most ghoulish painting or carving depicting the horrific depths of hell would not have Satan at the center, but Thermodynamics, represented by a blank-eyed quadruple-fanged serpent with an empty belly drinking the warm life-force right out of its innocent victims, diamond-studded eyes staring with the cruel impersonality of a relentless, mindless force. (Or maybe I shouldn’t have watched any of Queen of the Damned on basic cable last night, a truly awful movie by one of the more awful writers of paperbacks I loved when I was a teenager, because it’s making me feel Gothic and tragic and positively overwrought. Moreover, to expand this parenthetical aside past the point of reason, Van Helsing was on basic cable tonight and I can confirm that it really sucks. I mean, you can’t even watch it for more than a few minutes at a time because the pain in your head intensifies with every second. Normally good actors acting very badly, bad actors acting badly, special effects that look completely cheesy, David Wenham’s appallingly terrible haircut, etc. Yeesh.)

Now I’ve lost my train of thought. Anyway, it was damn cold today and I’m someone who likes it cold. At the same time, for the next several days I’ll be the only person in this big house and that’s exacerbating this cold feeling. I’ve been blasting the TV and the music, and that helps. The next step is tossing this tiny stone into the giant ocean of cyberspace and causing a couple of ripples to remind the world that I’m over here generating heat, using electricity, and just generally being alive. Hey, remind me not to play “Log Cabin Fever” by Split Enz this week, okay? At least, not until Swami gets back from his trip to China.

Low cloud moving cross the sky

It’s good to know on a cloudy day that the sun is still up there shining.

And no George Clooney, either

I won’t go into any details*, but let me just say that I spent over six hours in the emergency room last Wednesday, and it was no fun at all. Remind me not to complain about car troubles again—medical troubles are far, far more nerve-racking! But all is well, nothing to report, I am a paragon of health. Bring on the leftover pumpkin pie and order me another four-day weekend, stat.

*Okay, if you want a little detail, you can read this.

Showdown at the Woodley Cafe

The night was dark. I was slouching through town, feeling unfamiliar in a crowd of strangers, trying to forget myself amid the crush trying to get noticed. I needed a stiff drink, there was definitely a stiff drink out there who was head over heels for me, and I knew there had to be a place where we could get acquainted. I walked into the nearest bar ’cause the farthest one was too many steps away.

Then I saw them, three goons that weren’t looking for trouble because trouble had heard they were looking and skipped town on the next Chinatown bus. That was trouble’s mistake, because everybody knows the Chinatown bus is as likely to leave you by the side of the road with your luggage on fire and soaked with antifreeze as drop you on a stinking street corner with a chopstick up your nose and a wonton up your ass. But never mind that. Back to the goons. It was like the Dating Game in one of Chuck Barris’s cocaine-fueled fever dreams: Bachelor #1 was probably the one they called the Kid, his innocent face all smiles after beating the latest murder rap with the help of a few guys named Ben Franklin. Bachelor #2 looked like he dug his bivouac next door to the Unabomber and made his own moccasins out of Ted Nugent’s hide. And Bachelor #3, well, he was the softspoken one, which means he might ask your opinion of Freddy Adu but shiv you even if he agreed with your take on the kid. I knew I should have kept on walking past that dive but then I caught their eye and it was too late to leave early.

The Shiv gestured to a seat next to him and I had to sit down. At that moment the waitron cashed in her years of training and asked for drink orders.

“What Scotch do you have?” the Shiv asked, and I hoped for my own sake she had whatever swill he was hoping to swig.

“We got Jack Daniels,” she responded, and then I knew it was all over for her and me both.

Then the Kid leaned forward. “They say you got quite an arm.”

“Do they,” I responded, playing it cool. If things went my way I might have a chance at getting out of there without it being feet first. “I wonder if they know what they’re talking about.”

Unabomber looked up from his half-sized glass of beer. I wondered if I was dressed as Dorothy because that bar was sure starting to look like Oz. “You see this nose?” He pulled a giant plastic nose out of his pocket and slammed it on the table.

Now I knew I was in crazytown but I thought it best not to point that out to the natives. “Yeah, I see that nose.”

“You beat the Kid at arm-wrestling, you get the nose. You lose, Shiv here gets yours.”

“Simple proposition,” I remarked. It might have confused the teetotaling waitron but it was crystal clear to me. “Let’s go for it.”

I clasped hands with the Kid and we planted our elbows on the table. At first, he was holding back on me, I could tell, letting me wear myself out early and then he could swoop in for the kill. So I kept it low-key, not showing off, knowing that the longer it went the more likely I would keep one of my favorite facial features. Actually, who am I kidding, I’m not a huge fan of my nose but I wasn’t ready to give it up for adoption to that bunch of jokers.

Time was ticking by and the Kid was looking a little less confident. I didn’t have him yet, though. I just kept my eyes on that nose and hoped that my arm didn’t leg out. At last I saw him start to crumble like Big Dig concrete, and finally I banged his arm to the table harder than Woody Hayes punched out Charlie Bauman in the Gator Bowl.

For a minute it was quieter than a room full of people sleeping through Elvis Costello’s North. Then I stood up, picked up the nose, and gave a salute. I figured I’d hit the road before their patience ran thin like Gene Keady’s combover. “Here’s to otolaryngology,” I said, picking up my drink and draining it in one shot.

That was one hell of a night in Washington, D.C.

Notes: cross-posted to Costello-l; visit here for a couple more pics!

Movie review: The Prestige

It’s been a long time since I went to a movie and walked out immediately wanting to see it again. (Maybe Kung Fu Hustle?) This was one of them. I’m not going to go into plot details, because there are a lot of surprises and I don’t want to spoil any of it. But I will tell you that this was one of the best constructed plots I’ve seen, every performance was excellent (due to my various biases I’m obliged to spend a whole paragraph later on one particular actor; see below for that), and there wasn’t a single moment where I looked at my watch. I also ended up thinking about it for the rest of the weekend, which is rare because I often slip into an irrational funk after seeing movies.

(By the way, over here I promised Frantix at some point that I’d deliver my verdict on The Departed, but in truth I was so lukewarm about that movie that I couldn’t really motivate myself to write a review. That is review enough, I think. Well, while I’m on the subject, I’ll just say that the performances were excellent, but the plot was botched in the last quarter of the movie and therefore I was terribly disappointed. Leo deserves Oscar consideration, though.)

In a rare girly moment for me, I must confess that this movie led me to believe that the best job in the world is probably designing costumes, and this film was a showcase for some great ones. There’s nothing like the Victorian era for waistcoats, ascots, corsets, and hats of various shapes and sizes. I wonder what the line-item in the budget was for top hats, for example. Christian Bale should be firing his agent, because he got majorly shortchanged by being stuck in prison greys for a large portion of the proceedings. I also loved the set dressing. Can you imagine being in charge of something so major, in that everything you do is on display and captured forever on film, but so minor, in that few people probably ever notice the vases on the shelf behind a character while he’s talking? It’s kind of mind-blowing when you think about it.

And now, the promised/threatened paragraph on Hugh Jackman. The first thing to say is that he has appeared in some of the most awful flicks that have ever been imposed on humanity (here of course I’m talking about Swordfish and Van Helsing, yikes). The next thing to say is that I’m nonetheless incredibly biased in his favor because of the X-Men movies. (That’s 1 and 2; let’s imagine that 3 was scrapped after Bryan Singer left.) But after that full disclosure I think it’s safe to report that the dude can act. Even in some very tense emotional scenes, he really pulled it off. Look, I got through almost the whole paragraph without mentioning that there is a shirtless scene (insert fangirl swoon here).

But I’m tiptoeing around the major points of discussion because I want you to see the damn movie, not read my effusive ramblings on it. Go. Go, already, if only so I can discuss the plot with you afterwards. And buy an extra ticket for me so I can go again.

Drop the thesaurus, pal

That word doesn’t mean what they think it means.

Wow

So the Democrats actually managed to do it. I’m amazed, surprised. When I went to bed on Tuesday night they were calling the House for the Dems, but it didn’t look like the Senate was going to happen. And that seemed to be confirmed on Wednesday, when the two states without a firm result turned out to be Montana and Virginia. I knew better than to think of Virginia as a blue state, after growing up there. But it actually happened! The change I’ll be happiest to see is one that seems minor, but could very well have a huge impact: now that each party controls a branch of government, I expect the media to stop playing GOP lapdog and give the Democrats the voice that they’ve been denied for the last six years. With Democrats controlling committees, they’ll regain some control of what the media reports. What a relief that will be after watching the media treat every despicable piece of GOP spin like actual news.

The other result that is close to my heart is in South Dakota. If voters in one of the most conservative corners of the country can vote down an anti-abortion law, then I can truly believe that this country leans pro-choice. Perhaps that’s asking for too little, but at this point even the smallest hint of affirmation means a lot. Way to go, South Dakotans!

Blogger says: no birthday for you!

My post wishing Sashe a happy birthday, posted on the exact day and everything, has just disappeared. I have just spent the last half hour saving all my damn posts, in case the whole thing goes up in smoke someday. Fellow bloggers, if you have any interest in posterity, I guess this proves you don’t leave it up to Blogspot.

Autumn almanac

Thought I’d share the pics I took this past Sunday on a bike ride. This first one is looking downstream at the Charles River, with the Prudential Center visible in the center.

Thanks to the lovely and talented Erin giving us windproof vests, 45F is not too cold to go cycling, for the record! And thanks to the National Weather Service’s wind chill index, I can confirm that when you’re riding 20 mph in 40 degree weather, it feels like it’s below freezing. Hardcore, baby.

This is the Weeks Footbridge looking downstream, with both the Hancock tower and the Pru visible in between the yoogly concrete high-rises.


And the third pic is looking upstream at the same bridge.

For once, the Luddites are right

I’ve had my head down for the last few days trying to keep the workload at bay, but I thought I’d pop in long enough to comment that America is doomed. Of course I’m talking about electronic voting machines, which are not even a good idea in theory (does no one see the crucial need for an actual paper trail?) and a total nightmare in practice. I direct you to Ars Technica and Time magazine for hair-raising discussion.

I also have been gritting my teeth and scrunching my eyes shut over all the hoopla about the Republicans supposedly losing their grip on power—not because I wouldn’t want to see it happen, but because indulging in any exuberance before the actual results come in is, well, irrational. It’ll be bad enough if the supposed rout doesn’t happen, I don’t want to compound the pain by feeling giddy and expectant for this next week. Would anyone care to join me in this soundproof room?

Finn newz

This is rapidly becoming unbalanced in favor of Finn things, but anyway I just found Tim’s blog on MySpace. It’s kind of funny to see him writing on that site, it just seems like such a breathless teen hangout with all the emoticons, but hey, what do I know. I also am a little unsure of that first single, which seems excessively happy. (Watch the vid on YouTube) I’m going to have to offset it by listening to Nine Inch Nails or something.

I also heard that Neil’s finished recording his album at Real World in the UK—I’m just glad it isn’t taking him six years to do it, as it always does for the most habitual denizen of Real World.

OMG Neil r0x0rs!!1!!
Current mood: abliquafregious

Wheels on fire

The old Civic has had two incidents of running hot in the last four months, both of which seemed to be fixed by throwing money at it. But it did it again today. It already has a new radiator and a new thermostat—unfortunately the next thing to consider is damn expensive (head gasket). Maybe it’s time to buy a new car this weekend. Ten years and 164,000 miles is a good run for a car, isn’t it? But... I am so not in the mood to deal with car-buying schmack. And the new Civics are so damn ugly.

Newspaper reporters spoiling all the fun

Because TJ was scarred by watching Midnight Oil jump around in dorky coveralls, here’s a far more stylish video from Tim Finn.

Soup du jour

• Happy Birthday to Anne and Judy!


• Only two more days until the Fantasy NBA draft, and I am completely without inspiration. All I know is, I don’t care how high Kobe is ranked, I’m not picking his ass.


• I feel like my head is carrying around 100 good ideas but I can’t get a single one down on paper (or screen).


• Here is a very good picture to look at when feeling frustrated.


• In another rock and roll moment, Midnight Oil tried to burn down Alan Thicke’s talk show in 1984. Am I the only person who remembers Alan Thicke?

How soon one forgets the sticky floors

Tonight Steve and I were driving by Newbury Comics, and it launched a series of memories of seeing Neil Finn do an in-store performancethere, and the concert at the Paradise later that night, and it snowballed into recalling all the Finn-related concerts we’d seen here: that Paradise show in summer of 2002, one at Avalon the following February of 2003, and then the Finn Brothers in 2004 and 2005. It’s about time to have another visit, I think! But the Paradise one might always be the best to me. The venue is so small, the farthest away you can get from the stage is probably 20 feet. Even the annoying chick in front of me trying to push backwards the whole time couldn’t bring me down. Ah, GA shows are to love, and to hate.

There’s something so special about knowing that the guy standing in front of you on the stage came from the other side of the world and is probably losing money on the tour because he had to fly all his gear, but dammit, he’s in front of me right now playing his heart out. And Neil’s stage persona is half perfectionist, half laid-back dude screwing around. I don’t know how to explain it; it makes for the best shows. I love seeing Elvis Costello live, but not as much, because the venues are always large and so much more impersonal. Plus, 70% of the people are there to hear the hits, or discuss stock trades, and don’t really give a damn. At Finn shows that bunch of jackasses is closer to 10% or less of the crowd, I’d say.

In April 2001 Neil played several shows in NZ with a bunch of musician friends, and it was broadcast over the web. I was glued to the computer and that tiny, grainy window onto something that was happening thousands of miles away. I snapped the screenshot you see here; more are available at somethingsofinn.com (follow the left sidebar: Neil Finn > Live Shows > 2000-2003, scroll down to 6 April 2001). That experience is yet another reason why I can say, with a minimum of irony and cynicism, that the Internet changed everything. For the better.

How long til the next tour, Neil?

Cleanliness is next to craziness

So I’ve been spending my Columbus Day hanging out at home, cleaning various things around the house. My hopelessly overstuffed email inbox, the bathtub, the kitchen counters—hell, I just dusted the toaster, for heaven’s sake. And since cleaning doesn’t require much brainpower, I’ve been pondering whether or not spending time dusting my toaster means I’m crazy.

I’m reminded of the scene in Sex, Lies, and Videotape when Andie MacDowell’s character is seen scrubbing various surfaces in her kitchen, obsessively shining the faucet on the sink. Clearly this is a shorthand way of explicating her inner turmoil: she tries to restore precise order and cleanliness to the outside world as her inner world is being buried under giant dust bunnies and growing various species of mildew. So whenever I put on the rubber gloves (whose package always has a well-manicured smiling woman on it—shouldn’t it show a person, lightheaded from bleach fumes, trying not to hurl while clearing out the shower drain?) I start thinking about being crazy.

Am I crazy? I would much rather have things clean than dirty. I sincerely wish my whole house were a giant dishwasher-like device whereby I could walk outside, flip a giant lever, and come back in an hour to a sparkling, steamy, and well-nigh sterile environment. Although, think of the water bill. Then again, no one could accuse me of being obsessively clean. I’d rather wait until things get really dusty or dirty and then it’s so much more satisfying to see their transformation back into shiny things you might actually want to touch or walk on or whatever. That seems like a reasonable desire to have in one’s life. If I weren’t overwhelmed by liberal guilt at the thought, I might even pay someone to clean things for me once in a while, and I wouldn’t have the opportunity to ponder my possible state of insanity. So perhaps my behavior fails the crazy test, where I ask myself whether it’s affecting my life to the point where other people notice, or it harms my relationships, or I find myself curled into a fetal position when I realize that the mold on the bathroom ceiling spells CHENEY/HANNITY 2008. If that’s crazy, then I suppose the whole world is right there with me, and thus the asylum has become the whole world.

Have you ever noticed how much dust accumulates on desk chairs? It’s downright frightening. Remind me not to look down while I’m writing these posts.

Paging Stevie Wonder

I wish I had another person on my staff so I didn’t have to do the work of two people.
I wish Al Gore had been inaugurated in January 2001.
I wish JetBlue flew to WAS and not just IAD.
I wish the zipper on my briefcase wasn’t broken.
I wish the workweek was only four days long.
I wish all of my peeps still lived in the area.
I wish difficult decisions were more easily made.
I wish the people who live above me would stop stomping everywhere they walk (how do they not have shin splints by now??).
I wish X3 hadn’t sucked so much.
I wish people did what was asked of them occasionally, and not just what they felt like doing.
I wish politics in this country weren’t so mean-spirited and partisan.
I wish I had more time to be creative.
I wish I had a more cheerful blog entry to foist upon my dear readers!

Snorklewacker on Wheels

This morning—which was a Sunday, I might add—Swami and I got up at 6:30 to make it downtown in time for the Hub on Wheels ride. It’s a charity bike ride that starts at City Hall Plaza and tours the Emerald Necklace parks and cemeteries: Fenway, Jamaica Pond, Arnold Arboretum, Franklin Park, Forest Hills Cemetery, and the Neponset River. Then the ride swings up along the coast and back to City Hall.

It was a blast! We took the 30-mile loop (the longest route was 40) and managed to avoid crashing into any of the thousand other riders who were out there. Support was great: cops at every intersection, snack stops, and arrows indicating the route. (This was a real pleasure here in the town with virtually no street signs.) There was a blue heron near Longwood, standing in a stream and staring at all of the people crazy enough to go cycling at the crack of dawn in iffy weather; lots of patient motorists waiting for us to pass by (and of course a few impatient ones); the completely impressive JFK Library, which I had never seen before, much less cycled by; a Navy ship in drydock; and incredible views of Boston and the harbor from several angles. Sorry I don’t have pics, though, because it was a little too wet to risk the camera.

The only question mark was, as I mentioned, the iffy weather. It showered on and off on us a few times, and it wasn’t anything close to warm, but at least the real rain held off until after. (And then it freaking poured.) But next year, I gotta try for the full 40 miles. Hm, this is turning into a cycling blog, isn’t it?

Dancing out with the moonlit knight

My undying gratitude goes to Brent for sending me a link to this video on YouTube:


Even with my overdeveloped sense of irony, I can’t resist loving early Genesis. But I won’t blame the rest of you for giggling through the vid, especially if you make it to the part where Peter Gabriel starts playing the flute. Knights of the Green Shield stamp and shout!

This week in WTF-land

Okay cats and kittens, here’s the latest list of things that are irking my jive.

Location, location—what was the third thing again?
My place of employment is engaged in a half-hearted (and half-witted) attempt to relocate from the place it’s been for the entire 33 years of its existence. The current prospects are: 1) a lovely, spacious, modern building in the heart of the Square that’s close to all kinds of stuff and actually has room for everyone on staff; or 2) a cockeyed, ramshackle dog of a building that is about 40% of our current size and perhaps 20% as charming—if you keep one eye closed and a bottle of vodka handy. But the hard fact here is that option 1 isn’t even a true prospect, because there’s no money to pay the lease that would come with it. I wish I’d never seen it in the first place, just to have my hopes raised and then summarily squashed flatter than hammered shit. And to the university whose name we bear, I ask: Where is the love, comrades? How about offering us a space that’s larger than Khrushchev’s shoe?

PeopleSoft and Safari: Can’t we all just get along?
So I’ve never been able to access PeopleSoft with Safari, for no damn good reason. Now I get a memo stating that as of next week, PeopleSoft will no longer work with Internet Explorer. They claim it’ll work with Safari, but then they reveal that it’ll work only with Safari 2.0. Which I don’t have. Which I’d have to buy Tiger to get. Can someone remind these chuckleheads that the whole point of web-based interfaces is a little concept called interoperability? Platform-freaking-independence? Land of the free and home of Steve Jobs? Ah, never mind, I didn’t want to view my paycheck anyway.

Expletives available upon request
It’s been almost a year since I left my last post and moved “up” to manager, and my former position is still vacant. One year doing the work of two people. At this point I’m tempted to tie the Chicago Manual of Style around my ankles and jump into the Charles. And why, why are there no scholars/authors who know how to properly construct a bibliography? I know, it’s esoteric knowledge, but at least pretend you care. Maybe spell “USSR,” or Stalin’s first name, correctly once in a while.

Happy Birthday, Kaskasero

I know it’s almost over where you are, but here in EDT it’s just getting started. I hope your day has been bitchin! Have a big plate of calamari tempura on me.

Hail to the teach

I got an email out of the blue today from one of my students from Russian 101 back in 1994. Of course I remember her, since there’s so much personal interaction in language classes and the students spend the first couple of years just learning how to talk about themselves. It’s definitely flattering that she remembers me. That was my first quarter teaching, and I was probably a pretty lousy teacher. Then again, 101 students always have the best impression of you. You’re like the Oracle at Delphi, writing mysterious characters on the board and speaking in tongues. The students are all optimistic and fresh, and everything is fun and games. By 104 three quarters later, they’re completely demoralized by the strangeness of Russian grammar and beaten down by complexities such as motion verbs and verbal aspect. It was at that point that I was hearing one girl lean over to another and utter in a stage whisper, “She hates me!” And how could I forget the student who wrote with unexpected candor in his instructor evaluation of me that he didn’t work very hard in the class because was just trying to pass. He did—just barely.

Today was the first day of classes here at the ivy-encrusted university where I work. I sure don’t miss grading workbook exercises every night, or trying to figure out an engaging way to introduce the dative plural. (I don’t think there is one.) But it’s nice to know that somebody learned something because I was there to help.

Ten years of bliss

Just like the date-stamp says, it’s September 14, which means it’s the tenth wedding anniversary for Steve and me. It’s a standard assumption that getting married changes things, but for me I don’t think it really changed anything. Steve was my best friend and the most important person in my life before the big day, and he has been the same ever since. Maybe getting married actually changed everyone around us, since the government and the law and the people around us had to acknowledge what I had already known.

Anyway, that day back in 1996 was a great one. A fun party, perfect weather, my stepbrother-in-law taking my sister’s dare to roll all the way down the grassy hill outside the reception site. And of course, the magisterial trashing of one of the crappiest cars I ever drove. I’m still grateful to everyone who took pictures, especially Laura who captured the best one of all, the mobster shot (email me if you want to see the pic).

By the way, silly string harms the finish on auto paint. In case you ever need to know.

I love you, Swami!

Bicycling, blueberries, and booze

With that threesome it can only mean that last week was our mostly annual trip to Maine. If you don’t know anything about Acadia National Park or Bar Harbor, start Googling. This year was the fourth visit, and it was great to be back. Now let’s break down the three Bs.

Bicycling: Most of the cycling potential in Acadia is on unpaved carriage roads, so we usually rent mountain bikes so it doesn’t matter when they get outrageously dusty and banged around. But this year we brought our road bikes with us and had ambitious plans to ride the Park Loop Road. That’s a 20-mile loop that rings the eastern part of the park, with fab ocean views and more than a few serious hills. This is the first year I’ve been fit enough to ride that kind of distance, so I was looking forward to seeing how tough it would be. We tackled it on Day Two, and it turned out to be fantastic. There were three climbs that totally kicked my ass, but they all paid off with amazing views of the ocean or one of the lakes at the top. People driving by us were giving us the thumbs-up and calling out encouragement, which was really great. And I hit my fastest speed ever on a descent: over 33 mph.

On Day Three, which was supposed to be recovery day, we rented the aforementioned mountain bikes and hit some of the more difficult carriage roads. I’d been on some of them before, but we did two sections that we hadn’t done before and that had some great views. It’s really satisfying to dog up a hill and realize that it’s the same one I had to walk the bike up a couple of years ago. And we went much farther in terms of distance than anything we’d tried before.

So all in all, because we had gone on a ride the day before we left for the trip, it was a week with over 60 miles of riding. Boo yah!

Blueberries: It’s not a trip to Maine without those little blue things appearing everywhere. I think the breakfasts at the B&B managed to include them every single day. Then there was the always divine Blueberry Oolius smoothie at Gaucho’s, and the blueberry-lemon tart at Eden that rocked my world. Somewhere in my head I hear Yosemite Sam exclaiming, “New England boiled blueberries!” Of course, right now in the fridge there’s still some Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale—which leads us naturally into the third B.

Booze: The best part about biking (or
hiking, since we did some of that, too) to exhaustion every day is that you have no guilt when it comes to dinner. And man, dinner was way over the top every single night. The mood was international: a South African sauvignon blanc, a New Zealand pinot noir, California merlot, a viognier from that largish country in Europe where they make a lotta wine, and oh yes, the Cuban mojito. There was food paired with all of those beverages, but frankly, the details are a bit hazy. I raise my glass to restaurants that let you recork your wine and schlep it home, by the way. And another toast (hic) to New Zealand for making screw-top bottles, which facilitate schleppage.

So now the real question is, should I quit my job, move to Bar Harbor, and become a mussel farmer? Because as I drag my carcass back to my damn desk job, that’s looking mighty appealing to me...

Nothing but love for Andre

Andre Agassi played his last professional tennis match today. He’s an interesting chapter in my interaction with sports figures, because he’s the only one that I used to passionately hate, but now completely love. How did it happen? After much self scrutiny and analysis, I can only conclude that it must have been the hair. He used to have that nasty, nasty mullet. Going bald was definitely the best thing that happened to that guy. But I kid—it was also his transformation from cocky asshole to gracious sportsman.

I also marvel at the fact that the dude is only 36—yes, I wrote only, even though he’s an athlete, which means that he’s about 100 in regular human years—and his back is hopelessly screwed up. I guess I should be glad that the fates didn’t see fit to make me a professional athlete. I’ll still be playing tennis when I’m 60, while Andre is going to have to hang up that oversized racket unless they invent the bionic spine. That made it all the sweeter when he managed to beat Baghdatis on Thursday night. Too bad he couldn’t survive today, he would have had a shot at Roddick!

Anyway, I hereby dedicate my next double-handed backhand to the man, Andre. I hope he recovers enough to play again someday.

Girls, girls, girls

My thoughts are pretty chaotic right now, which is making it hard to write a pithy blog post. But I want to share some of the things that have been kicking around the last couple of days, and they do all seem to hit on a common theme.

1) At work right now they’re in the middle of interviews to fill a vacancy. After the hiring committee meets with the candidates, the rest of us staff have been meeting with the prospectives in a less formal, less interview-like session. Yesterday it hit me: the hiring committee is all men, and the staff at the get-to-know-you meeting are all women. It’s bad enough that I’m the first female in the 33-year history of the place to sit on the Editorial Board, and these job candidates are getting the same message on their first visit: men in power, women in supporting roles. Depressing.

2) The sudden upsurge in new babies (my new niece, Frantix’s recent arrival) and the “On Balance” blog at the Washington Post have me thinking about breastfeeding. (I’m not linking to “On Balance”, by the way, because I think it’s actually very lame; you can track it down yourself if you’re really interested.) I am truly appalled sometimes at the virulent militancy of pro-breastfeeding people. Let women make their own damn choices, all right? Formula isn’t paint thinner, for pity’s sake. And making specious arguments about cow’s milk not being meant for people, or implying that women who feed formula aren’t good mothers because they’re not sacrificing enough of themselves, is the exact kind of irrational nonsense that traps women in the same old stereotypes. Stop with the crazy talk and give me something reasonable we can discuss.

3) Along the same lines, the recent debates about working mothers (just Google “Linda Hirschman”) never ceases to amaze me. Reading anything written by Caitlin Flanagan or Sandra Tsing-Loh in the Atlantic makes me want to tear my hair out, they’re so righteous and so fond of ad hominem. Has anyone else ever noticed that this debate in particular seems to demand that every participant hold up her own life for scrutiny? Do we ask politicians to have opinions only on matters with personal relevance? (On the other side of that coin, it never fails to irritate me when a politician takes up a cause only after being affected by it personally. To quote Meadow Soprano, “Self-involved much?”) Is it so implausible to think that we could discuss the truly difficult issue of balancing work and the rest of one’s life in a rational and less personal manner? Besides, I wonder whether the working-mother question is more of an economic issue than a social one. Health care in the U.S. is almost entirely dependent on full-time employment, which means that in a domestic partnership you need to have at least one person working those 40 hours per week. If we could sever health care from employment, you could have each partner working 50%, or 75%, and strike a balance between work and family that fits your needs exactly. Never mind that revamping health care in the U.S. is probably harder than colonizing Jupiter.

The only thing I can conclude from all this is that I’m in dire need of a vacation. Fortunately, I have one coming up next week. Pundit fatigue is setting in...

Aunt Snorklewacker and Uncle Swami

As of 10:30 this morning, I’m an aunt for the first time on the in-law side! Welcome to Earth, As-Yet-Unnamed-Girl. You know, it’s Elvis Costello’s birthday today, too. There are so many naming possibilities that take advantage of that fact: Alison, Juliet, Georgie (although she hated her name), Betty, Tokyo, Giant Insect Mutation—the last one has the added bonus that the proud parents can name their second kid Bug Attack. I dare you to tell me that’s not a brilliant idea.

Cilantro-Lime Rice

Last night was Homemade Burrito Nite, which is an extravaganza of burrito-making that results in three delectable dinners’ worth of burritos. And the key to success? Cilantro-lime rice. Cook your rice, and when it’s done, mix in some fresh-squeezed lime juice and a fistful of chopped fresh cilantro. Mmmmmm. I know that there are strange people out there who hate cilantro, but you all require counseling.

This discussion of rice reminds me, Raoul now has a blog! Welcome to the Intarnets, Kaskasero. And why do you hate America, anyway? The economy is collapsing without your shopaholism!

Book review: Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton

This review will address two themes: ST geekery, and a more sober discussion of life and adulthood and all of that self-reflection schmack.

First, some geekery. I must begin with full disclosure: I am a huge Trek fan, and have been since I was 8 or 9 years old (I was always Captain Kirk in the role-playing I did with my friends—yes, even at that tender age I was domineering). In fact, I recently unearthed a calendar from 1984 among my possessions where I had written in which TOS episode aired each day. Now that’s some good blackmail material.

When TNG started up, though, I was going through a phase of Geek Denial and didn’t watch it. Actually, I’m not sure I even knew it was on; 1987–88 was a particularly crappy time in my life. It wasn’t until the fourth season that, under the influence of roommate Marc, I started watching ST again. It’s probably for the best that it happened that way anyway, considering that the first two seasons were fairly awful, and seasons 3 and 4 were excellent. Anyway, let’s just say that I am now and shall always be deeply in love with TNG. I think it’s the best ST series by far. Some obscure cable channel has been re-running them lately, and I find it damn near impossible to keep from watching them every night. (One of the greatest hours of TV ever was on the other night, in fact, when they showed “Family.”)

Despite all the love, though, I thought (and pretty much still think) that Wesley Crusher was the biggest L0ser in the known galaxy and I always thought his character was completely lame. (I shall not weigh in with my opinion of his eventual fate, except to roll my eyes.) Steve and I nicknamed him “The Weasel,” and lo there was much mockery. Things remained in this state for the entire decade of the 1990s and the early years of the 2000s.

Then, a few years ago I discovered Wil Wheaton’s blog. I don’t remember how I found it, or what I expected, but I ended up spending a fair amount of time poking around. I do recall the first realization that struck me: he and I are about the same age. Since I had watched the early TNG episodes only in reruns, I always assumed I was older. We also have both played a hell of a lot of Nethack. Other than that, I noticed his writing style was engaging, and he wrote pretty openly about his family and whatever was going on in his life. He seemed like a real person, rather than some 2D, glossy celebrity. The fact that he had his own presence on the Web, all done himself, was cool. And the site was damn popular—every post had comments numbering in the dozens at least, so clearly the dude was writing something interesting. Then it dawned on me: Wesley Crusher might not be cool, but it was distinctly possible that Wil Wheaton could be cool. They were, like, orthogonal and shit.

So last Christmas I found myself asking for Just a Geek, which he was plugging on his site, and so I got it. Fast forward to last month, when I finally took it off my huge stack of planned reading and cracked the cover.

Suffice to say, I devoured the whole thing in a few sittings. If I had to sum it up, I’d say that it’s a narrative of Wheaton’s struggle to come to terms with his past as Wesley Crusher. Somehow over the course of his time on TNG, he went from successful child actor to starving adult actor, and at the same time he suffered a fair amount of rejection from people at Paramount and the convention circuit as they treated him far worse than the other regular cast of the show, even after the series ended and everyone could be considered former cast members (Wheaton had left partway through season 4).

But the message is larger than that. When Wheaton hits his late 20s and early 30s, life gets pretty nasty and complicated as he has to confront the fact that acting might not ever pay the bills again. I think many people can identify with this arc, since I think for many of us our career path, determined by choices made in college or grad school, will at some point naturally start to reach a lull (or smack into what turns out to be a brick wall). So Wheaton’s struggle to confront this, and his eventual success in overcoming everything that was holding him back, is engaging reading and inspiring to those of us trying to avoid the same traps. Even though this isn’t All About Me, I would also humbly point out that his own blogging and book-writing have provided some of the impetus for me to get off my ass and finally create this blog.

All of this, plus a few hilarious anecdotes about TNG and some warm recollections about his fellow cast members, made this book a very satisfying read. In terms of design, I thought O’Reilly did a good job even though it’s not their usual fare. I especially dug the sans-serif typeface they used for Wheaton’s quoted blog entries. (That was an obligatory warm comment about O’Reilly, should they take an interest in hiring me—hint, hint.) I might not ever give The Weasel the time of day, but Wheaton will definitely get the Fingers of Rock if the opportunity ever comes up.

Mel Gibson vs. Nightcrawler

Last night I dreamed the following, more or less: I was in a theater watching the newly released X-Men 4. The movie was turning out to be really terrible, although I was glad to see they brought Nightcrawler back from his completely unexplained vacation from X3. Then Mel Gibson showed up, both in the movie—as Nightcrawler’s brother, which seemed as outrageous to my dream self as it does to me as I type this now—and in the theater, sitting one row in front of me. At that point the movie began to reach new depths of suck, mostly because of Mel’s crappy acting. Meanwhile, the Mel in the theater started making an ass of himself, talking and generally being obnoxious. So I stood up, knocked his baseball hat off his head, and basically picked a fight. At this point it became clear that he’d had a few (what can I say, apparently my subconscious reads more supermarket tabloids than I do) and the cops quickly showed up. We were ordered to empty our pockets, and Mel spent about twenty minutes pulling fistfuls of cash and empty Heineken bottles out of various places on his person.

At this point things get kind of sketchy in terms of story line. I know that at one point I told Mel to “shut the fuck up already,” and then one of the cops started to accuse me of being emotionally unstable. Fortunately for all involved, the real-life alarm clock went off and I woke up.

Study questions: (1) Do you think Mel really drinks Heineken? Why or why not? (2) Discuss the pros and cons of Nightcrawler turning out to have a crazy cop for a brother who paints half his face blue (aha!) and goes around pouring glasses of water on extraterrestrials. (3) Essay: Imagine a world in which Mel Gibson would actually be cast in an X-Men movie. Extra credit if you bring up the fact that David Hasselhoff has actually played Marvel character Nick Fury in a cheesy TV movie of his own.

Current doses of WTF

As I ease back into the grinding despair of the workweek, here are a few things that have me shaking my head.

• This newsflash from Ars.Technica: the RIAA are still peabrained, despicable weasels


• Recently overheard from a coworker: it is being overly attached to your possessions and loved ones that causes cancer. Silly me, I thought it was caused by damage to DNA, triggered by genetic or environmental factors.


• Maurice Clarett. Seriously, dude, WTF. See especially the most recent developments. If you feel like signing up to read the Washington Post, Michael Wilbon wrote a good piece on this trainwreck of a guy. (Note that one of the sidebars contains the misspelling "Columbis"—whoops.)

In Soviet Union, watch winds you

In keeping with the ’80s theme around here so far, I just wanted to share a closeup of this watch. My friend Carla gave it to me long ago—it had no band and didn’t run. I resolved to fix those problems some day, and, well, it’s probably been fifteen years but I finally did it. I found a watch shop that looked like they could handle an odd piece, and they certainly did. The woman there insisted that I go with a red band, which violates my all-black-all-the-time philosophy when it comes to accessories, but you’ve got to admit that it just makes sense.
I loves me my throwback Soviet watch.

Book review: V for Vendetta

Was it only a couple of years ago that my bookshelf had a mere one or two comic books among all the holdovers from my Russian literature degree? Now there is at least one foot of shelf space devoted to the things. If I had to characterize turning thirty a few years ago using a single metaphor or meme, it would be that of Humility: realizing that all kinds of things I used to scoff at (flared-leg pants, comic books, fitted t-shirts, Kashi cereal, Green Day) are worthy of respect. I’ve even confessed in the dark of night that there are songs by Steely Dan and Elton John that don’t completely suck. Did I just write that?

So anyway, comic books. Or graphic novels, if you like. Something I always considered to be the domain of lonely teenage boys who were compelled to draw or just gaze at the impossible women that they could never date. (Never mind the fact that stereotypical comic-book women are probably structurally unsound to begin with, and therefore inherently undateable.) So what happened? The aforementioned Humility, I suppose. Well, that and Bryan Singer. Despite all of my mixed feelings about 20th Century Fox and their handling of the X-Men (I’ll save that for another rant, as it’s a lengthy one), I’ll say that Bryan Singer directing the first X-Men movie was a smart, smart decision. And it was a brilliant move to make an X-Men movie that stripped away all the candy-colored comic silliness of the X-Men, much like ST:TNG rose so far above the campy beehive hairdos of the original Star Trek. It meant that I, a self-confessed female, actually could get into the movie and the characters, and come away without feeling too geeky. (Of course, I recognize that using Star Trek metaphors is the apotheosis of geeky and I should just shut up and face the music, but never mind.) Plus, Hugh Jackman is a damn good Wolverine, even if he’s several inches too tall (I leave it to the hardcore fanboyz to give a damn about that kind of crap.) And for the lova Pete, you put Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian in a movie and it more than makes up for the non-acting of Halle Berry! So the X-Men movie made me think, hey, there are decent stories behind all that cheesy spandex and HH chest measurements. And so comic books, and graphic novels, began to trickle into the house.

I should also give credit to Frank Miller’s Sin City, whose artwork and anti-superhero characters showed me that there was more to the genre than good vs. evil and fights on the moon. So he gets a paragraph all his own.

Then Raoul gave Steve Watchmen by Alan Moore. Goddamn. The book threw me into a depression for weeks (nothing like bleak, late-1980s cynicism to make you feel like hanging yourself instead of celebrating the holidays—I recommend reading it in, say, June), but the complexity of the story and the characters earns it the coveted label of literature. Never mind that the thing is done with pictures—excellent, cinematic pictures—if that’s going to cause you to write it off, then your mind is closed, baby.

After that, the small trickle of pebbles became a real rockslide. I started picking up some X-Men trade paperbacks, although I have yet to find a series that doesn’t smack too much of The Silly, or have lousy artwork, or some unholy combination of the two. Then League of Extraordinary Gentlemen invaded the house and kicked all sorts of ass. Let’s all pretend that there was no movie made of that masterpiece. Bone even showed up, my reading of which is the only thing that has prompted strangers to speak to me on the bus (despite my strong vibe of leave-me-the-fuck-alone).

And now at last I’m ready to talk about V for Vendetta, which I just finished last night. As with Watchmen, it’s a thick slice of 1980s-style paranoia, which is all right by me. In my universe, post-nuclear fascist dystopia is always in style. And speaking of style, despite the book being over 20 years old I don’t find too much that’s dated about it, except perhaps the art. The colors are very weak, like a faded page of comics from the newspaper, and lines are not particularly sharp. I don’t know if that’s because it was done on softer paper or not, but it’s striking if you’re used to the sharp color and smooth paper you find in recent trade paperbacks. The art also often feels quite cramped, and you do often find yourself straining to see more detail in an individual panel to figure out what the heck is going on. I don’t know if the art was shrunk from a larger size, or if the claustrophobic panels are supposed to metaphorically reflect the stifling fascism of the society portrayed within, but either way it’s not deal-breaking. (Dig my rationalization, though.)

Regarding substance, I was curious to see how the book differed from the movie, which I saw first. (And by the way, thanks to Vendetta the Wachowski brothers have regained a small measure of respectability, all of which had been lost as soon as the second Matrix movie came out.) There are certainly differences, and in many cases the movie is an improvement. Regarding the book, the character of Eve is problematic, in my opinion. She’s profoundly weak; even after her transfiguration into V’s protégé she doesn’t come across as possessing the brash spirit or intellectual promise that you’d think V was looking for. I’m glad that Natalie Portman’s Eve had more going for her. In the book I found myself wondering why V bothered with her, since it didn’t appear at all certain that she would ultimately have the strength to do what he needed her to do. And one must recall that it was complete chance that she was the one whom V rescues at the beginning of the story—I suppose that’s where suspension of disbelief comes in, to ease the jarring shift of her character’s development.

In the obligatory feminist portion of this review, I must point out that the women come off very badly. There’s the calculating bitch, the spineless wife, and the helpless victim—not a lot to go on in the Fem Pride department. But truthfully, once I change out of my feminist superhero costume and return to my mild-mannered self I see that the men are just as petty, pathetic, and pathological. So I conclude that Moore’s not a misogynist—he’s a full-fledged misanthrope. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

So to sum up, I think if you are going to hold your nose and grudgingly read only one Alan Moore graphic novel, read Watchmen. If you’re more comfortable with your inner geek, or if you have a soft spot for dystopian novels, read Watchmen, but read Vendetta too. Ave atque vale!

By the way: Here’s a good biography of Alan Moore.

"Recycling Day": a haiku

Recycling day dawns
Glissades of glass crash and crunch
The blue bin thunks down

Testing, testing

If this doesn't work, well, then the gravitational constant of the universe has been somehow altered.