The Ammonia Biscuit

I miss my music

2011-07-27T00:36:00.000-04:00

At the risk of sounding too much like a hipster, I have always enjoyed discovering music outside the mainstream. Now this isn't because I like to appear to have some sort of private insider knowledge that I can flaunt, I just like discovering something new that I can enjoy. I never understood the mentality of people who only listen to the radio station that plays only the songs they listened to as a teenager. What is the point of listening to music if you can't discover? I love finding new music and a love sharing it with others. Years ago I had an odd mix tape given to me by someone (and more is the pity that the era of sharing mix tapes is a fading idea) of music that was primarily from albums that were more popular in Europe than in the United States. The music was fantastic and I used to listen to this mix tape so many times that when it eventually broke I found myself disappointed to know that I'd have an almost impossible chore ahead of me in trying to replace it. Most music stores I could access did not carry any of these bands. Fast forward more years than I care to admit to.

It is now the day of the internet and instant gratification. I found myself humming some old familiar songs and I decided to revisit some of them. I began searching Youtube for some of them just so I could hear these songs once again. Then I ran into a problem with one specific band.

The band in question was pretty popular in Europe but not so much in the USA. Oddly enough I found a few songs from them and their videos that played here, but not the one song I wanted to hear. I kept running into "not available in your region." I even found the video in question on the Brazil and German mirror sites for MTV but the entire band was absent from the USA site. This was getting silly. People get upset about the Great Firewall of China or finding out about Egypt or parts of the Middle East censoring the Internet and here I was, in the United States, getting boxed in myself. I wasn't trying to watch anything profane or subversive. I wasn't trying to infringe upon the copyright of the band. Heck, this video was apparently legally available for public viewing all across the globe . . . except in my country. How is this sort of service protecting anyone? Are hordes of Youtube viewers really in danger of destabilizing the world as we know by doing something radical like, I don't know, listening to a song that is relatively obscure in their country and possibly start a new market for it? What's worse, it's not only a more or less pointless distinction to make as to where my computer is located, it's also a fairly easy distinction to fake. Do these people realize that all it takes is a five second search to find an appropriate proxy that gives an acceptable location. This is the 21st century, people. On the Internet no one can tell which country you are from . . . or if you're even human. Actually, I have my doubts about some of you, but that's a post for another time.

Well, I already had a set back

2011-07-24T17:26:00.000-04:00

Well, there went two days that I forgot to post anything. I wish I had a better excuse than "by the time I was done with the day I just wanted to go to bed" but that's basically it. I had two separate sets of guests come over for the past few days and no matter how pleasant the company is, after they are gone I just feel like going to bed.

Today I went with a friend to a horror convention. This was my second attempt at going to a convention of some sort and the last time I went to one I was not terribly impressed. To this day I am not certain if I was just not in the right frame of mind or if I went at a bad time or what, but I walked away from the experience feeling unsatisfied. This time I went to a different convention and I have to say this one was much more enjoyable. Oddly enough I'm not even really a horror movie buff. It may help, but I would say that you don't have to really love horror movies to attend one of these. In fact, I think it is far more important to just have a wry sense of humor. It was positively a celebration of all that is campy.

From the booths, to the posters, to even the movies they were showing it all showed what I love most about Halloween. Halloween is the one day of the year when we don't have to pretend to be nicer than we really are and can let the dark side of humanity, the side we try to repress the other 364 days, free reign to run wild. And what do we do when we do allow this dark side to come out? We mock it. As Thomas More noted in the Screwtape Letters, the devil cannot abide being mocked (yes, I know, most people think it was C.S. Lewis who said that but apparently More said it first). So, yes, I had a great time as I watched people peddling fake blood and DVDs filled with nothing but movie trailers. Then, for me a highlight of the trip, was finding a booth from T Shirt Bordello. That was fun.

What's the big deal about a shirt, you may ask? Well, that's a tough one to answer. A friend of mine once asked why I like weird or funny shirts and I tried to explain it was like giving people fair warning about who I am. Whether most people realize it or not, everything from clothing choices to the way people style their hair send out little cues to the world as to what sort of person they are. Small things like a woman's choice of earrings or the cut of a jacket can signal the world how a person wishes to be viewed by others. Me? I like announcing to the world that I have an odd sense of humor in big bold letters. It is advertising how I would prefer people to approach me. Relaxed, informal, and ready to share any odd observations they have made. T-shirts are cheap and they work almost as well as a tattoo in alerting the world who you are.

Ever since I started wearing oddball shirts with weird jokes on them I have found that, depending on the shirt, I have had lots of enjoyable conversations with total strangers. At amusement parks I've had ride operators, who were obviously bored by the very repetitive nature of their job and with sitting out in the hot sun, suddenly burst out laughing as they saw a joke that they appreciated fly by. People have stopped me in stores, museums, and other places to ask me where I found these shirts and where they could get one as well. People from all walks of life who get the jokes and find themselves laughing treat the shirt like an icebreaker and will start talking. For those experiences alone the cost of a t-shirt is worth what you paid for it many times over. The guy at the booth for T-Shirt Bordello was a great guy who didn't mind talking to a random stranger and even showed me a design for an upcoming shirt that will appeal to the Trekkie geek in all Sci-Fi nerds and discussed some others they have coming up. Too many choices, people. Too many choices.

Long nights and longer days

2011-07-19T23:19:00.000-04:00

Last night my children were playing. My son vaulted over the headboard of a bed and assumed his sister, who was hiding behind it, was out of the way. She wasn't and he landed on her stomach. I was up until 5 AM waiting for my wife to return from the ER with my daughter as she was checked over for internal injuries which, mercifully, she seems to be free of.

I woke up this morning at 9 AM due to the phone ringing. My wife got up early because our new puppy woke her and I let my wife get some much needed sleep. I skipped sleeping, though, and when she went in to work late I found I was already getting drowsy.

So, this evening we took the kids out to play in the hope they will be tired tonight. It probably won't work, but I am still clutching to the faint hope of getting some sleep tonight. Here it is, day 2, and I nearly broke my 30 day promise because I am having difficulty focusing. Not a good start.

30 days of rambling

2011-07-18T22:35:00.000-04:00

To anyone out there who might have actually stumbled across this blog, you might notice I don't post very much. This is mostly because I don't have a lot to say. Well, that's not quite true. I have lots to say, but nothing on any specific topic. I can talk a little about most topics but I simply don''t care about any one topic enough to devote blog space to. Blogging, it seems, is best left to the fanatics. They have the passion and the focus to speak at length about one topic day in and day out. As for me? I just tend to ramble. Which, it turns out, is sort of what of drew me to blogging in the first place. I just forgot that somewhere along the line after I signed up. Confused yet? Allow me to elaborate.

Believe it or not, social networking on the Internet existed long before the existence of Facebook, Myspace, or even Friendster. In fact, before I was ever on the Internet itself, I spent a lot of times making friends on various BBSs. So what does this have to do with blogging? Well, among the various social networks that have waned in popularity, I actually had a Livejournal before the site became overrun with Russian spambots. Unlike Facebook, Livejournal was a bit interesting in that it was more like a shared diary system. It was a long form of social interaction rather than the short form that is now trendy. Sum up your thoughts for the day in 140 characters or less. Sure, for the sake of brevity, it does have some appeal. People can give lightning fast updates of their moment to moment encounters, but it just seems to create a worse signal to noise ratio. People tweet about their dinner menu or liking causes on Facebook, as if social reform can be accomplished by clicking a mouse, it just sometimes seems so impersonal and shallow. I felt like I had a spyglass trained on a bunch of strangers' lives, but had no idea what was going on in their heads. Then one day in a fit of Internet Paranoia I decided to delete my old Livejournal account. But, before deleting it, I found myself doing the oddest thing. I started reading it.

I had a handful of friends, and I use the term with a touch of irony as some of them I have never met face to face, and I got their updates in my feed as they read mine and it was like getting a snapshot of what the person was thinking about that day. Some days I rambled on about things as mundane as the weather to the truly wonderful such as what it was like when I just became a father for the first time. I found myself looking back on what was important to me then, laughed at my stale jokes, and wondered at how much I had changed. It was like getting in touch with an old friend that I had not spoken to in years. What's more, I found myself reading through my friend's journals and noted how much they had changed as well.

So, for the next 30 days I am going to try to get back to my root, such as they were, and go back to rambling. Sure, I am probably just talking to myself but that's okay. Even if no one else out there reads this, I at least get a record of what I was thinking about for every day.

Today, July 18th, 2011, for example, I was apparently thinking about how Livejournal actually was pretty cool in its own way.

It's easier to make a graphic than it is to research it

2011-06-13T23:08:00.005-04:00

All right, considering my last post was making fun of Donald Trump and the Birthers some might think I have a left leaning political philosophy. I really don't. I have a "leave me alone" political philosophy. That said, it seems that some conservatives out there are going out of their way to give us cringe worthy material. Case in point, I found this image floating around on Facebook recently.

To quote Wolfgang Pauli "Not only is that not right, it's not even wrong."

I would like to point out the excellent use of spell check the author of this wonderful little graphic took the time to use. Note the excellent use of grammar where the plural of symbol is used to agree with the plural implied with the word people. Even though words like "only" and "own" might suggest singular, this person, quite correctly, dodged that obstacle. Then, sensing the upcoming power with some verbal mutant spider sense, the author narrowly avoided the linguistic trap of the homonyms there, their, and they're to correctly identify the middle form. Well played, unknown person, well played.

I point these things out because, as far as I can tell, they seem to be the only elements this person managed to get right. Although I do praise this person for, at least, not skewering the Queen's English with the ruthlessness he or she showed with the content of the message, it is also a bit of a pity. A pity, I say, because if this image were any less intelligible the author might have a promising career in cryptography. Navajo Code talkers be warned, this is your competition you are seeing here.

I suppose I should first start out with the obvious. The two symbols identified in the graphic are not the personal symbols of any one person. The one to the left, the swastika, most people might identify with Adolph Hitler but he could hardly claim it as his own. Actually, prior to a certain man with a truncated mustache, the swastika was a well recognized symbol across the globe. It actually appears in old European churches and other places as innocent as, say, a basketball team. Not even an evil fascist basketball team wearing jackboots as they goosestep down the court. The San Francisco YMCA basketball team was the Swastikas. Still, that was all pre-World War II, right? And now that symbol means something different. So the point is still valid, right? No, really it is not. Because that isn't Hitler's personal symbol. That, in fact, is the symbol of his political party. The National Socialists German Worker's Party or, as we know them these days, the Nazis.

Now, despite the word "socialist" being right there in the name, the ideology of this party is a far cry from your textbook definition of socialism. The ideology did condemn laissez-faire capitalism, yes, but it was also anti-communism, anti-democracy, anti-economic liberalism, and strongly for a state religion. They were strongly nationalistic, fought with other parties identified as Socialists, and had a strong racial agenda that even during World War II there were some doubts as to if Hitler himself met the criteria. This was a fascist party with a misleading name and was not meant to promote one person but an ideology that was considered bigger than any one person. So, calling it Hitler's personal symbol is not only wrong but grossly and inexcusably wrong. This would be like calling the Chicago Bulls logo Michael Jordan's personal sign. Just because he was popular and he wore the sign doesn't mean he owned it or that there weren't people before, after, or even during who weren't running around with the ball too.

So, the symbol on the left isn't Hitler's. What about the one on the right? Well, that's not Obama's personal symbol either. Actually, that is a symbol for a campaign group called "Obama for America." If you look at a list of its members you might notice a certain name is suspiciously absent. This is a group who is campaigning for and promoting a person it supports for a political office. Unlike the earlier Hitler example, most campaign groups do not actually have the person they are endorsing as an actual member. So, while Obama may be quite happy with the work they do, even support it, the sign up there doesn't belong to him in any way, shape, or form.

Campaign groups often come up with their own logos to promote their members.

Here is one for George W. Bush.

And here's one for McCain.

Here is a more historical one lest you think this is just some recent phenomenon.

The point is that a campaign logo, no matter how much a candidate may like it, cannot be considered a personal sign. Nor, on the other hand, can being a member of a particular political party make that sign your own personal sign. So, even the fact that these two people are identified by these symbols by association only, they are not associated with there respective symbols in the same way.

Trying to link their political philosophies by misleading statements about symbols isn't even worth a paragraph from a Dan Brown novel in debunking, but I may as well point out that fascist ideology is a supremacist ideology and a xenophobic one. Traits often identified as being associated with the far right. Calling Barak Obama a socialist and a Nazi would mean he is far left and far right at the same time. Please, people. Learn to identify your own political beliefs before you start attacking those of others.

Lastly, though, the part I truly find offense with is the statement that only two people in history have been identified with symbols. This person must be using a different definition of history not agreed upon by any lexicon I am familiar with. For one thing, it seems to excuse anyone who is Asian from belonging to history. After all, many Asian cultures use a personal seal in lieu of a signature. So, what? Just because these people don't speak English they aren't part of history? Hitler didn't speak English either. So all of history must only deal with Western or European cultures right? Oh, wait. European royalty totally did that too. Oh man, I guess by "all of history" we only really mean since the beginning of the Twentieth Century and for Western Culture, right? Oh wait. I forgot. Prince identified himself with that weird symbol taken from alchemy right. So, does that count? And then there was also ? from ? and the Mysterians. So, all of history means no Asians, no royalty, no heraldry, no musicians, and nothing before the 20th century. Oh, and, of course, nobody who has read this article. Well, quite a compelling argument when you put it in that light.

So, here's to you political graphic icon maker! Shine on, you crazy diamond! With research skills like your combined with your impeccable command of the English language I see a bright future ahead of you bringing, oh, two maybe three figures. Easily!

Here we go again.

2011-04-28T13:38:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, April 27th, 2011, was a day when a particularly violent storm swept through the United States, tossed around a lot of garbage, and left a lot of people thoroughly unsatisfied. Unfortunately, I wish I were talking about the tornadoes that swept through Alabama.

After years of badgering, President Obama finally released his long form birth certificate to finally squelch all rumors that he is not a natural born citizen. Or, at least, that was the plan. None other than Donald Trump takes credit for forcing the President to concede to this as the fact that they had previously provided a certificate of live birth, birth announcements had been found in the archives of two separate Hawaiian newspapers, and multiple public officials from the state of Hawaii have gone forward to state that his birth has been confirmed there. I doubt this much scrutiny has been placed into seeing if Donald Trump is actually a US citizen. According to Wikipedia, he claims he was born in Queens, New York but it also lists his mother was from Scotland. How do we know he's not really Scottish?

Even after the release of the long form birth certificate, a certificate that birthers claimed could not possibly exist, Donald Trump has stated he wants to examine the certificate himself for authenticity. Well, I had heard rumors that there was a billionaire out there who dressed like a bat and was an amazing detective, but who knew that it was Trump we were talking about all this time? Well, with all due respect to the world renowned detective skills of The Trumpman, I think I should take a moment to put some things into perspective here.

1) Barring the invention of a time machine, proving anyone who is an adult today was born anywhere is more or less impossible. Because GPS is a relatively recent invention and children are typically not born carrying one, you have to rely on some sort of outside context for verification. Video footage could be in a sound stage. Documents can be faked. Eye witness testimony can be lies. But, we generally accept that the degree and complexity of fraud it would take to pull of that sort of deceit is not really worth the effort.

2) Citizenship, natural born or otherwise, is not always cut and dry. John McCain , Obama's opponent in the last election, was born in Panama. His parents were US citizens and Panama was under US control at that time. So, do we question his citizenship? Well, let's see what a former President, Mr. James Madison, has to say about it.

"It is an established maxim, that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth, however, derives its force sometimes from place, and sometimes from parentage; but, in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States"

Oh, sounds bad for McCain.

Oddly enough, though, Obama isn't the first President to have questions of where he was born come up. Chester Arthur was accused of being Canadian. Whew, lucky we didn't all end up being a former British Colony after that debacle.

3) There is a petition going for Arnold Schwarzeneggar for President in 2012. There is really no doubt he wasn't born in the US, but people seem to be willing to discuss an Admendment to the Constitution for him.

4) Strangely enough, birth place doesn't really mean much about a person's loyalties. The first President of the United States who was legally born a US Citizen (the first few were originally British, after all) was Martin van Buren. His first language was Dutch and that was the language he spoke at home as he was from a Dutch family. Othe other hand, a prominent banker and Senator who was alleged to be part of a plot to overthrow the government and install a fascist regime had two direct descendents serve as President (Prescott Bush is father to George H.W. Bush and grandfather to George W. Bush). Last I checked, people haven't really been looking into if Lee Harvey Oswald was really born in Louisiana even though he desperately wanted to be a citizen of the USSR.

So, please. If you dislike Obama, try to attack his effictiveness as a President and not his legitimacy for even being there. All I have to prove that I am a US citizen is the fact I have a birth certificate, a Social Security Card, tax records, personal testimonies, and the fact that I have never ventured outside of the borders in my entire life. I'd hate for all that to be thrown into doubt and find myself being deported.

The Quick and the Sled

2011-01-21T12:26:00.003-05:00

I happen to live in a city that has a perpetual identity crisis. Which is really not that surprising as the entire state has an identity crisis. Summers start out like a normal midwest temperate climate and suddenly the state panics and decides that it is somehow depriving us if the mercury isn't boiling. So one day it will be nice sunny weather and the next fountains of brimstone are bursting forth from the pavement and evilly cackling imps are demanding payment before they will ferry you across a river of lava. Fortunately the latter mostly happens in front of the DMV. In winter we have the exact opposite happen where the state seems to think it is supposed to be warm even in winter time and in December I am often still mowing my lawn in short sleeves. Then January rolls around and the state suddenly remembers it is part of the midwest and snow is dumped on my lawn like an arctic rottweiler. I'm not quite sure if my state is schizophrenic or if it just procrastinates, but this year it decided to break form by having winter arrive early and, by that, I mean on time.

This past year December was actually snowy and for the first time in years we had a white Christmas rather than a brown and frankly rather muddy Christmas. While that is great for all those who rather enjoy sliding across wet ice while fully laden down with fragile presents in seizure inducing nightmares of psychedelic paper, the more important aspect of this was we actually did our winter shopping at a useful stage. For some odd reason the department stores in the area tend to sell winter supplies when the calendar says winter will be here rather than when it really arrives. Winter clothes pop up in late fall when it is still a balmy 68 degrees and then spring fashions are trotted out in the middle of a blizzard. I actually had the heat go out on me in late January and had to search all over town for a space heater because most stores had stopped selling them in favor of swim suits and water slides. As such, even though my front yard is an absurdly steep hill, the kids never have gotten to try sledding on it until this winter because we have never thought to buy sleds for the two weeks they are in stock in the stores because the kids are still wearing shorts. This year, though, the seasons and the stockpile in the stores miraculously lined up and we got to sleds for the kids. Two weeks later a coworker of my wife's gave us sleds for the kids so now we have twice as many sleds as we have kids. Even better, the donated, used sleds we got for free the kids like much more than the new sleds we shelled out for. I'm not entirely sure why I bother some days.

Watching my children play with their sleds has been, at least for me, an educational experience. It is fascinating to watch how children will spend two minutes in preparation for a 10 second thrill ride. I also discovered that two kids on sleds can clear a half inch of snow off a hill in less than an hour. Most sled days have come to an end not due to cold or exhaustion but due to my children unearthing the green lawn below the snow. If only I could get them to sled on the driveway I might not have to get out the shovels. I also discovered that the two burning bushes that we had planted at the base of my driveway several years before the kids were born were exactly one sledwidth apart. Too bad the burning bushes didn't learn the same lesson as the kids widened the path between them a bit by repeatedly mowing down one of the bushes.

After the last major snow the kids had wore the white stuff down to a nub so that, when it did get above freezing for a few days, my house once more had a green lawn and they reluctantly had to put away their sleds. Then yesterday it began snowing lightly and school was let out early. I picked up my children and began driving home. In the half hour it took me to drive home a light snow became heavy, a clear road became slushy, and a steep hill became an almost impassible slope. It was like trying to go up an the ski jump in the Winter Olympics. The kids looked out at the piling up snow and looked at me with expectant eyes. An hour later, I had them ready to go outside.

While the kids are playing I like to stand around and keep a watch out for oncoming cars. The road isn't that busy at the best of times, but that also means that most people drive up the hill assuming that the road is clear. However, as I noticed that most cars were spinning out and getting stuck and the snow was still coming down heavily, I began to relax. I began to relax so much that I began watching the kids sliding down the hill and recalling my own brief experience with sledding.

I did not have a sled for most of my childhood and my mother lamented that we ruined a large number of garbage can lids as we corrected this oversight. A garbage can lid does not offer much in the way of speed nor is it very good for control. But, if nothing else presents itself, it will work. But then one year I got a brand new saucer sled (it was the winter before we moved to the tropics so, there you go, but that is another story) and I was excited to try out getting some serious speed off this one.

My house at that time was near the top of an extremely long and extremely steep gravel road. At the bottom of this hill one was supposed to make a ninety degree turn to immediately turn upon a narrow bridge or else they would fall into the creek. This is where I decided was the best place to try out my new saucer sled. I'm not sure what my plan was when I hit the bottom of the hill in a mostly uncontrolled slide and found myself flying towards the frozen water below. Fortunately, I suppose, I never had to find out thanks to rather poor choice in family pets.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Old English Sheepdogs make bad pets. Far from it. They are a lovable breed and actually very good with children. Actually, in most respects, they are a wonderful breed for families. The problem is, and it is not exactly a problem in most respects, is that sheepdogs are a working breed. The compulsion to herd things is encoded into the very strands of their DNA. They can't help it. So, sure, if you are prone to letting your children run wild and unsupervised a sheepdog can be a great way of making sure they don't try to escape the immediate grounds. The problem is that a sheepdog, apparently, can't quite tell the difference between sliding down a hill on a plastic saucer as a means of entertainment and a daring daylight escape attempt.

I took off going down the hill and I was doing great. I had tucked my legs in to reduce drag and I was leaning backwards to make myself more aerodynamic. I was accelerating and the world was narrowing down to a white blur. I was having fun. From behind me I heard the sounds of distant barking and ignored it. Dumb dog was always barking for no reason. Ten seconds later I was past the half way mark and going faster than ever. The wet scraping sound of the plastic sliding over wet snow had become a constant whistle and wind was whipping my numb cheeks. I was so happy and . . . was that barking louder? I looked to my left and saw the dog was now keeping pace with me. Wow, she could really move when she wanted to. Well, fine. I would race the dog and . . . why is she pulling in front of me?

The dog, in her oblivious canine way, foolishly seemed to assume I had some modicum of control over the device and was trying to force me to pull over so she could herd me back. I yelled at her to get out of the way and in that moment we both failed to take the hint the other was providing. In such a situation, the conflict is most quickly resolved by the member who has some control over his or her speed and also happens to be equipped with sharp teeth.

The dog bit my glove, gently, mind you, as she was only trying to pull me and not hurt me, and yanked on it to get my attention. As sleds work by exploiting the near frictionless properties of snow and ice, this resulted in me spinning around and I was now facing backwards while still sliding towards my eventual icy doom. Now that I was facing the way she wanted me to go, though, the dog felt encouraged and started tugging on me more incessantly. Thus is the reason I blame for why I went off the road, crashed into the bank, and wiped out in a ditch moments before hitting bottom. Getting run over by an overly enthusiastic sheepdog seconds later was just a nice way of topping an already memorable encounter with gravity.

Back in the present I was watching my kids enjoy themselves and remembering my last time when I went sledding and thinking, heck, it can't go nearly as bad as it did then, right? I'm sure I was thinking at the time I grabbed one of the saucer sleds and joined my kids in the snow. I'm just not sure what I was thinking. I know they were laughing hysterically and, I think, that was part of the reason I joined in. But I'm not certain what I was planning on doing after they laughed. I pushed off in the snow and went sailing down the hill.

When I prepared my kids to go sledding, I had padded them with lots of clothing to keep them warm, dry, and to soften their landings. They each wore knit caps and thick hoods as makeshift helmets. I, on the other hand, had dressed for standing out there. I only recalled this difference after I crested the top of the hill and saw just what I was plummeting down.

I hit the road and began spinning out of control in a shower of snow as I plowed into the neighbor's yard. I found out that they had, indeed, salted the road and I made that discovery by taste as I gulped down some of the salted spray as I was trying not to scream profanities in front of my children. As I came to rest, narrowly avoiding running into rocks, and slid into the driveway of my neighbor my son came running up to me and yelled "Again, daddy, again!"

Yes, I did it again. I never said I learn from my mistakes, now did I?

Mercy Kill for NaNoWriMo

2010-12-03T23:15:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I only wrote half the story I intended. I stopped posting on day 10 but I wrote for several days thereafter and got over 30,000 words in. Then I stopped. I was over the halfway mark and facing almost certain victory when I just stopped dead in my tracks.

I could give lots of excuses, but the truth is much worse. I just hated the story.

Now, anyone who has ever participated in NaNoWriMo can vouch for the fact that by week two it gets tough and it is a lot of hard work to keep the word count up. That wasn't the problem. Before it was always at least a bit of fun or I was interested in what would happen next. This time I realized I didn't care and if I was reading this book I would have ditched it on page two.

It was easier to put it out of my misery and shelf the idea until I know what was wrong with it than force myself to write something that I hated.

Anyway, maybe one day I'll post something more interesting.

NaNoWriMo Day 10

2010-11-10T22:43:00.002-05:00

It's been three days since I last posted and I have been writing like a fiend during that time. Basically I get some quality time to write just around midnight so, rather than post daily progress, I wrote through that time and kept going until I finally got my word count up on track again. I needed to have at least 16,670 words by today and my current count is 17,170. So, about 400 words ahead of schedule finally.

Bad news is that means today's segment is a long one.

NaNoWriMo Day 7

2010-11-07T23:58:00.003-05:00

Okay, long story short, last few days were hectic and I didn't end up writing on those days. One day I did do a little writing but the computer crashed and I lost about 1k words worth of material. I had to crunch a lot of writing into today.

I'm still behind on my word count, but I'm hoping to catch up again in the next few days.

Here's the next segment.

2010-11-03T22:33:00.001-04:00

No update today. I am actually at a Danzig concert right now.

NaNoWriMo -Day Two

2010-11-03T00:00:00.001-04:00

I didn't have a very productive day today, unfortunately.

Click here for today's segment.

NaNoWriMo - Day one.

2010-11-01T23:43:00.002-04:00

Well, today was the first day of attempting to write a novel in a month. I'm apparently a victim of trying to pad the word count as I am almost 2,000 words in and we have yet to leave the parking lot.

Anyway, here is the first day's work. I'll provide daily snapshots and a link to the complete document once it's over. Click here to read.

2010-10-28T18:37:00.001-04:00

Parenting definition: the near homocidal frustration caused by trying to prevent a child from attempting to kill his or herself.

Trees a crowd

2010-10-27T21:47:00.002-04:00

My driveway is a nightmare. It's steep, it's cracked, and it has bushes on one side and a hill on the other which presents a very narrow window where escaping my house is possible. Naturally, people from all over like to park in front of this window and block me in. When the neighbors throw a party it is inevitable that someone will decide to go out of their way to park right in front of my driveway. As this usually happens late at night and they are gone by morning I usually am fairly tolerant of this. Today, however, for the entire afternoon a dump truck with an industrial sized wood chipper was blocking my driveway. If they were cutting down my trees this might be understandable, but they were their for a neighbor.

I had to get out and I decided to address this in a polite way. I mean, the street is sort of steep too and that was about the best level spot they could pick and not have to carry branches too far. It's an unpleasant day and they have an unpleasant job. No need to make their day worse by screaming at them. So, I walk down to the truck and wait for one of the workers to approach and explain I need to get out to meet someone (my wife, actually) and they were blocking my driveway. Could they please move the truck for just a moment so I could get out?

The man I was talking to looked to be in his 40s or early 50s and he looked properly abashed as if it just occurred to him that this might present a problem. He assured me they'd move it in just a moment. Now, I want to point out that I had a 10 minute drive to meet someone who had to make a 30 minute drive. I should have no problem beating her to the location, right? No, I was late. By almost 10 minutes. Why? Mostly because when I backed down the driveway I sat there for a long time waiting for the one guy who apparently was allowed to drive the truck to stop ignoring me.

Look, I realize that once you've climbed a tree it is annoying and dangerous to climb down and then right back up again, but come on. I had to sit there in my own driveway waiting for someone to finish cutting up a tree just so I could drive an extra 20 feet and escape my own house. I'm sorry but if part of your setup is blocking the access to the house of one of the neighbors don't you think planning for actually moving the vehicle is so unreasonable? One guy was on the ground. Maybe give him the keys? At least make sure he CAN drive the vehicle if need be. Come to think of it, of the three guys there one was on the roof operating a pole saw, one was on the ground, and one was in a tree in a safety harness. Two guys had relatively easy access to getting the truck. One did not. Why give that guy the keys? I mean, seriously. You were there for hours blocking my driveway and evening was fast approaching. Considering the odds of having to move your truck at some point was rapidly approaching 100% didn't it occur to anyone to plan for this contingency? Apparently not, it seems because I was left sitting in my own driveway as a 20 something worked his way through several more branches since the time I gave them advanced warning I was on my way. Only when he was sure that the tree was done did he climb down and saunter his way towards the truck and nonchalantly move it while leaving his older coworker behind to hand out apologies.

Well, I guess if I have a point it would be this: I have about 50 trees on my lot and some of them are going to need work at some point or another. Considering the way this company acts when a potential future customer is attempting to be polite I'm thinking I'm probably going to shop around. I'm sure the 20 something is just as happy not to be coming back out this way so I really can't claim this is any particular victory on my part nor would I expect him to feel particularly chastised or even feel any sense of regret. My impact on his life is pretty much nil so karma isn't really going to bite him here. The most he has to fear is he managed to irritate a blogger who might go on a juvenile tirade on-line and . . . oh hey! Look! Nightmares do come true.

Was it windy or does the Midwest just suck?

2010-10-27T00:15:00.002-04:00

We had a tornado watch today across most of the midwest including this area. Me being me, I hid in my basement with my laptop and hoped that the power and the Internet held out. Other than a lot of leaves covering everything, the damage wasn't really bad. The only problem I really saw was a car that hit a tree. I somehow doubt it was weather related as the guy seemed to have backed into the tree.

Well, I am gearing up for NaNoWriMo this year. I am writing a surreal novel about two fellows who find out reality is a marketable product sold by an inter-dimensional company. If that made sense to you, then I pity you.

I'll provide links as I go along so all can read and weep I abuse the English language at a maniac pace.

Comfort Foods

2010-10-22T13:53:00.003-04:00

A few years ago I got sick. It was one of those week long illnesses where anything remotely solid trying to get down my throat got the bouncer treatment at the door. It was one of those types of bugs where you dread being awake but fear going to sleep because you don't know what your body might do to you while you are unconscious. However, I don't mention this to go on a rant about modern medicine being able to nail an athlete's hip back together so he can go out and earn his $10 million salary but all we can do about the Stomach Chinese Fire Drill virus is say "wait it out." No, I brought this up to talk about what happened immediately afterwards.

I woke up one morning and found my body seemed to feel almost normal. I was tired, almost like I had slept walked a marathon, but nothing inside seemed to be interested in doing a tumbling routine. Actually, after feeling rotten for so long, feeling almost normal felt pretty good. I was awake, I was alive, and I could eat! Something with more cohesion than soup! This was like winning the lottery I was so happy. I decided right then and there that I was going to cook something to celebrate and not just pop something in the microwave. After rummaging in the pantry I found a can of black beans and decided that sounded excellent. Then after eating, I felt so content that apparently a few neurons rewired themselves and black beans became my new comfort food.

It's not that I am against comfort foods. If it weren't for food I wouldn't even be here. Foods that offer strange comfort are even usually a good thing. But why did I have to pick that particular one? When I am stressed or have been sick or just bored I go rummaging for black beans and rice. Oh sure, some people might argue it is a healthier vice than some. Also, after I eat it I feel just sooooooooooooooooo good. But, likewise, half an hour later when I suddenly remember how much fiber is involved I sooooooooooooooooooooo wonder what I was thinking. Why couldn't I find a comfort food that did not require me to block out my schedule afterwards.

I actually have been wondering if there is a little parliamentary proceedings going on inside my body where each body part is casting a vote.

Brain: Hear ye, hear ye. We are currently feeling malaise. How shall we find comfort?

Intestines: I propose a good scrubbing with lots of roughage.

Brain: A motion to ingest a Brillo pad has been made. Any seconds?

Stomach: Seconded. I'll second anything involving food right now.

Brain: Motion has been seconded. All in favor say "Yea."

Intestines: Yea.

Stomach: Yea.

Liver: Abstain.

Colon: NAY! NAY! A thousand times NAY!

Kidneys: Yea. Doesn't affect me.

Brain: Motion carried. Release the endorphins.

I really wish that a chocolate lobbyist group could talk to some of the representatives about now.

So what is the Ammonia Biscuit?

2010-10-21T22:23:00.002-04:00

I call this little corner of the Internet the ammonia biscuit as it refers to a time in my life when my parents tried to kill me by force feeding me bread laced with floor cleaner. Events like that tend to have a lasting impact on an impressionable mind.

I suppose it is not entirely fair to blame my parents entirely for this. This particular assassination plot was masterminded by my kid brother who was still in diapers at the time. However, I do have to point out that parents who go along with a toddler's plan to execute his older siblings might be showing a touch of favoritism.

It all started one evening when my mother was making dinner, a roast I believe she said, and made the mistake of leaving the kitchen unattended for just long enough for Chef Toddler-yar-dee to wander in and try to assist. Like most kitchens, the truly dangerous stuff was within his reach under the sink while the items fit for human consumption were way up high where he might have to exert himself. Well, like all saboteurs, he knew speed was more important than finesse and proceeded to splash liquid death everywhere. My mother came in and found dinner was ruined and, so, she quickly had to improvise. Completely ignoring the tell-tale signs of drops of some liquid in the flour jar, she began making biscuits. I mean southern-style biscuits. Not the proper English cookies nor the New England scone like creations. I am talking about mounds of flour designed to act like a sponge to soak up gravy and other fluids so that not even the design is left on the plate when you are done chowing down.

When it was time for dinner my older brother and I participated in a long held family tradition of pushing and shoving in an attempt to hoard all the baked goods to ourselves. Ah, memories. Anyway, we both managed to grab a biscuit a piece, take a bite of warm buttered goodness . . . and spit it back out.

"Mom," we said in unison, "These taste really bad!"

That's when my mother said, "Oh no! The baby threw ammonia around everywhere and it must have got in the flour."

If you believed that I predict a rather sharp learning curve coming up. No, my parents went with option C in this multiple choice and decided it was unnecessary to, say, taste the biscuits or even sniff them for a hint of lemon scented floor cleaner. No, no, no. It's far more likely to assume your children who normally very enthusiastically devour biscuits both decided to be ungrateful liars and it made perfect sense to force them to finish eating them.

So, we did. Bite by bite we choked down every bit of that wretched stuff while my younger brother sat to one side eating his own toddler meal that was suspiciously untainted by his culinary skills. After a stern dressing down about how we needed to appreciate our mother more and this was a family and we should respect one another (irony alert coming up fast), my father finally sat down and took a bite of a biscuit . . . and spit it back out saying it tasted funny. No one forced him to finish his, though.

If I were more philosophical I might suggest how this is a metaphor for life. How the moments of joy are all laced with a hint of poison that we all have to just choke down. Or even contemplate the idea of the idea of trust between those with power and those without. Fortunately, I'm not philosophical and I'll just leave it with my family is crazy. This blog is about this and all the other little ammonia biscuits in life. It's also about me, bitter to the last bite.