Cuz we are the Aqua Teens

Ty Burr doesn't like the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. Neither does Tom Menino. Of the title (Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters) Burr says, "like everything else here, the title doesn't quite scan and that's what's funny, dude" (emphasis his). This is a common argument against the show's humor, that it's random for the sake of being random.

Funny thing. Burr's sarcastic comment is dead on. But not as sarcasm. Randomness has always been funny. Things that don't quite scan or compute are what makes us laugh. And that trait is hardly unique to Generation X or the Echo Boomers (or whatever we're calling them these days).

To wit, the first lines from the first skit from the first season of Saturday Night Live:

Professor: Let us begin. Repeat after me.
Professor: I would like.....
European Immigrant: [ in thick accent ] I would like....
Professor: ....to feed your fingertips....
European Immigrant: [ in thick accent] ....to feed yur fingerteeps....
Professor: ...to the wolverines.
European Immigrant: [ in thick accent ] ....to de wolver-eenes.

Feed your fingertips to the wolverines? This goes back at least as far as I Love Lucy. Vitameatavegamin? Does that compute?

Think of the "Dalia Lama" speech in Caddyshack. Think Airplane ("There's a sale at Penney's!"). Kentucky Fried Movie ("Big Jim Slade"). Anchorman ("I love lamp"). The Party. Steve Martin's old stand-up routines. Getting small? A novelty arrow through his head? Dude. How random.

Butt Paste

(Image links to Butt Paste's website)

Usually, humor depends on context. For example: In my day-to-day life, I encounter lots of stuff I find funny at a certain place and time. Then, seeing the same thing later -- in a different place, time, context, etc. -- it's not as funny. I heard about this stuff a shade over a year ago when my sister-in-law had her first baby. The first time I heard it, I thought the name was funny. The second time I heard it, I thought the name was funny. The third time, funny. And so on.

It's over year later and I still find the name funny. So either there's something wrong with me, or the marketing team that came up with the name "Butt Paste" have stumbled upon that rare thing that's universally funny. Like pirates, or robots. Comedic gold.

The power of God = One deck of cards

Recently I remembered an incident between a friend of my sister's and a teacher of theirs. And -- hey look, I know this sounds like it's third-hand info here, but bear with me -- they made the mistake of trying to bring a deck of tarot cards into a teacher's house during a party (a chorus party? My memory is a bit fuzzy on the details). He refused to let them bring in the cards. If memory serves, his line was, "those won't work here; this is a house of God."

Well, OK. If they won't work, why not let them in the house? I have lots of things that don't work in my house and they don't seem to be a problem. Well, there IS the fact that they don't work, but that's beside the point.

And what if they DID work? Is God so weak as to be defeated by a deck of novelty cards? On one hand, I feel a bit lost in the wilderness if -- not only does God exist but he's all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful -- if this God can be vexed by a deck of strange, magical cards with drawings on them.

On the other hand, it does feel a bit empowering. I just need to remember, when I die, to bring my tarot cards with me (note to self: Purchase tarot cards), and carry them with me to the pearly gates. Then, if he won't let me in, then, well...who's holding the cards now?

Conversely, maybe God has use same twisted illogic as that teacher: "Sorry, those cards won't work here. This is my house."

The myth of the thin blonde

In the newsroom today, the topic of Kerry Healey came up, which reminded me of in interesting point: Throughout her campaign, I heard people refer to Healey as attractive. I don't see it. I've also heard people call Ann Coulter attractive. Again, I don't see it. And I don't know anyone who does.

And, come to think of it, I never heard anyone attach themselves to this opinion. I never heard "I think Kerry Healey is hot." I always heard, "people say..." or "some consider..."

Here's my theory: People see blonde, they see thin, they think "attractive." They don't look at the rest of the package. They don't bother to form an opinion of their own on the matter. They don't see that Ann Coulter looks like a horse. They just have this ingrained mental shorthand: Thin blonde=attractive.

I also have a double-secret theory, and that's that the only people who think Ann Coulter and Kerry Healey are attractive are heterosexual females who really have no barometer to judge them against. They just secretly think "Well, she's thinner than me, and blonder than me, she must be prettier than me." Bah.

The Colmes of the comics

Does anyone actually think Mallard Fillmore is funny? My theory is this: Mallard Fillmore is the Alan Colmes of the comic pages, the cannon fodder a newspaper will throw out there just to balance out Doonesbury (and I'm not linking that -- you KNOW what Doonesbury is). "Hey look, we couldn't POSSIBLY have a liberal bias, we've got Mallard Fillmore."

If you're not familiar, here's the premise of every Mallard Fillmore comic strip ever drawn:

Premise 1) Mallard looks directly at the audience and points out some politically correct foible. Foible is illustrated. Mallard looks at the reader again and finishes his sentence.

Premise 2) Silly liberal (professor, journalist, you get the picture) looks at the reader and makes a silly point. Point is illustrated. Silly liberal finishes sentence.

The guy doesn't need a comic strip; he needs a paragraph.

And I suppose that's the point: If you took away the window dressing -- Mallard's face looking directly at you, the silly liberal in frame 2, Mallard's face again -- you'd have an op-ed that's only 50 words long. And that won't pay off those debts at the track.

The future of news

I listened to an interesting NPR show on the future of newspapers. Here are a few tidbits...

--Tabloids, while increasingly popular in Europe, may not work as well in most of the US. Tabloids sell best among public transit users, who recognize the size as a convenience. The fear is that so many Americans are drivers that they don't see that benefit and only see the tabloid size as indicative of grocery-check-out trash.

--While newspaper subscriptions are down, overall readership is up, thanks to Der Intar-Web.

--While newspapers are floundering, alt-weeklies are doing relatively well.

Ironically, when I first joined Emerson's journalism program, I always said I wanted to do "online or alternative" news. Who knew I was walking into a cash cow?

Dollar Bill v. Coin Star

Give me a hand (Courtesy of Mike)

New coins will depict dead former presidents

WASHINGTON -- New dollar coins featuring all 37 of the nation's deceased presidents will be produced by the US Mint in 2007 under a bill Congress is sending to President Bush.

*****
I was just thinking the other day about why dollar coins never caught on. It’s because Americans don’t like to touch each other. Even the most un-intrusive contact is seen as intimate in our culture, especially hand-to-hand contact. The dollar bill is easily passed from hand to hand with minimal risk of those hands touching. Coins, however, must be placed in the palm. The only other alternatives are to slide the coins across the counter, or to drop them in the recipients palm and risk dropping them on the floor.

If you need evidence, just look at how many CoinStar machines have appeared in recent years. People don’t like to spend change and they end up accumulating it. CoinStar is just enabling our fear of intimacy with our fellow humans.

(end Mike)

The problem with coins is that they are an inherently disorganized way to keep money at hand. If you keep your money in a pocket or coin purse, it's doubtful that you separate them by denomination. Paper bills, on the other hand, are easy to stack, fold, count, and organize.

As a customer, I usually don't use coinage because it takes too long to dig out proper change. Bills are folded in half in my wallet, and if I have time, organized from biggest to smallest. Even if they aren't, it's easy to flip through them to find the proper amount.

As a former food service person, I'd also say that bills are much easier to count on a larger scale. Most bills are organized by denomination, stacked into standard increments (usually $100), then bundled with a rubber band. Coins are separated by bins (in a register), then usually counted by machine (think Coinstar). Coined are bundled and wrapped, but by size more than denomination ($.50 for pennies, $2 for nickels, $5 for dimes, and $10 for quarters).

Even beyond all this, it's always easier to give a larger denomination and get change than it is to add together smaller denominations. Even if the same number of coins have to change hands, the cashier has their sorted into bins in front of them.

You're right that there's a human element to this, and I agree that people in our society tend to avoid human-to-human contact. But I think this issue has more to do with a desire for speed and ease.

Some kind of electrical apparatus

On a recent post, I recall that I that I was avoiding doing "real" work by posting on my blog. I realize now that was unnecessary, and for that, I apologize.

You see, it's a blog. And work avoidance is implied. If I started every entry with a statement on whether I was avoiding work, every entry would begin with "Yes, of course I'm wasting time. It's a blog, isn't it?"

It would be like starting every blog with a report on where I was at the time. "Well, I'm in front of a computer right now, because that's how my blog is published. I'm typing and words are appearing on the screen as I type. Because it's a computer. Which is how the words get from my head to your screen. Through this wonderful mechanism of my brain to my arms to my fingers to the keys to some kind of electrical apparatus that makes words out of my thoughts and transmits them. But different than a phone. Because I talk into that."

Of course, many (well, OK, some) people do blog for a living or to augment other talents. In which case they would reciprocate by typing "I'm getting paid to write this."

Again, I apologize.

"Finding" a Balance

*Disclaimer: I mention in this entry that I work at Boston.com, and how some of our content ends up on the site. As should be obvious, my views do not necessarily represent those of Boston.com.

Last week I began an internship at Boston.com, the website for The Boston Globe. As part of my duties there, I sift through wire photos to create photo galleries. Photos come to us from places like the AP with fairly basic captions: what's happening, who's in the photo, where the photo was taken, who took the photo, and when it was taken.

Our job as web producers is to edit that info down and sharpen it. We also fix spelling errors and make sure the captions follow Globe style (verbs in past tense, etc.). Our thinking is this: On one hand, the photographer was there and knows what was going on; on the other, photographers aren't professional writers. As such, sentences can usually be rearranged, shortened, or clarified for easier reading. We also run into multiple pictures with the same caption, so we have to find other info to present to the reader/viewer to keep the gallery interesting.

I mention this because I worked on a gallery of "looting" in the Katrina aftermath, and given the current controversy over AP photos, I feel I should explain some of the thought that went into our gallery. The controversy, if you don't feel like clicking through to the article, is that in one AP photo, white people were said to be "finding bread and soda from a local store," while a black man in a very similar AP photo was "looting a grocery store." For the record, we did not use either photo in our "looting" gallery.

First and foremost, it's impossible to tell with absolute certainty that any photo shows someone looting. Any photo could have any explanation. In these pics, all parties could have purchased the items or gotten them from relief workers. In other pics, people could be running from, or even just running near, police for any number of reasons. On the flip side, anyone could be made to look like a looter. A person resting on a lawn chair could be "area woman rests after looting store." A person crying could be "area man feels remorse after looting store." And so on.

Ergo, we tried to be as specific as possible in our captions. People "removed items" and "jumped through windows as police arrived." All of which suggests looting, but given the photo and caption we're given, it's the most accurate info we have. We even (at my suggestion—my only real contribution to the project) changed the name of the gallery to remove the word "looting" from the title. The final title was "Area stores stripped of merchandise."

So, as I read about the controversy, I felt proud of myself for averting a potential crisis. Until I checked the site again before writing this and saw that the one word slug for our gallery was "looting."

Nuts.

Post-Katrina "looting" is a classic ethical scenario: Should you steal a loaf of bread to feed your family? How about water, or soda, or NFL Pro Shop jerseys? Soda, for example (I mention this because a man in one of our photos was holding a 12-pask of RC cola) provides both water and carbohydrates. Jerseys could be worn or sold at some point to make money for other items. People in New Orleans have acted like animals. But most of us will never have to face the scenario of having absolutely nothing. No food, no water, no home or job to go to, only the clothes on your back.

Within the AP controversy, I feel they should have been more consistent. If two—in this case three—people are doing the same thing, either it's looting or it's not. Looting is a morally loaded term, but probably accurate in describing this situation.

Within my work at Boston.com, I tried to opt for more descriptive language when possible. But, when you have room for a one-word summary on a "more info" box, well, what else would you call it?

The caption controversy is small change compared to the upcoming debates about emergency response, the behavior of the victims, and how race played into each. I can only hope the "blogosphere" treats it as such.

NOLA

Like most people, I'm human. As such, the situation in New Orleans depresses me in ways I can't begin to explain. So, as is my habit, I'm focusing on one small detail to ignore the larger picture. And in this case, it's the fact that The Times-Picayune predicted much of what's happening in NOLA right now.

Well, I don't think they got the looting and rioting quite right, but they were pretty much on the money in terms of the flooding.

Thinking for Money, or The Value of Time

I work as an assistant for an academic magazine called Media Ethics. While I will not divulge exact numbers, I will say that I am paid and the professors who act as editors and publishers are not. While I am probably not paid equal value for my work, my payment is probably in line with what other "academic assistants" are paid.

Again, without divulging specifics, I am usually not paid during the summer. I am usually expected to do minimal work (checking the mail, returning incoming calls, etc.) on something of a "volunteer" basis. However, this summer the magazine is moving its operations away from its base at Emerson College. My workload has increased with the move, and I finally decided to request payment for my summer work.

It was odd, requesting payment from people who work as volunteers on the magazine. Why am I paid while they are not? This brings up all sorts of questions about what work is worth, both monetarily and intrinsically (the respect, prestige, or satifaction you take from a job). And this is my best attempt to answer—not all those questions—but the simple question of why I should get paid while my bosses are not...

Professors (particularly tenured professors) are expected to contribute in some way to the academic community as part of their positions. This work may be writing, doing research, or working for the greater good of the university. A professor of mine once called the last one "being a good citizen", and for him, I think it consisted of attending poetry readings and making his classes do the same.

Sometimes this work is paid; other times it isn't. Payment is seldom equal to the work put in (for—say—writing a textbook), but there is usually some intrinsic value to your work (satisfaction, prestige, respect within your community, etc.). If nothing else, maybe you get invited to an annual conference in Aruba for your research on carpenter ants.

Students working as graduate assistants also contribute to the academic community in much the same way. They are not paid full monetary value for their work; however, they do receive valuable contacts and experience in exchange for their time. Maybe the professor they work for knows the editor at the local paper, which leads to future employment.

The difference in these situations is these: Professors are "salaried" in the same way management is in the private sector. This extra "contribution" is expected as part of the salary and part of the privilege of being tenured. Student assistants, conversely, work under contracts that are more specific about hourly requirements and payment.

Student assistants also receive less in terms of intrinsic value. There are only so many contacts and references you can cultivate, writing a book isn't equal to making copies, and you probably aren't going to Aruba.

My specific contract calls for specific work during the semester in exchange for a specific rate of pay. It also calls for minimal summer work without pay. Since I am going above and beyond the requirements of my contract during the summer months, it is not out of line for me to ask for increased compensation.

As a roommate of mine used to say, "my time has value." Of course, he used that line of reasoning to order takeout instead of cooking, but I'm pretty sure it applies here too.

The same professor who said that part of being a professor is "being a good citizen" also said that the freedom that comes with being a professor is more than worth the contributions you're expected to make. You can choose to explore issues in your chosen field, just as my professors have chosen to publish a magazine essentially in their free time.

My question then becomes: How much is that worth to them, and how much is my cut?

In Defense of Blogs (or "It's Astounding!")

I've been having an ongoing argument about blogs with a number of people in my life. For the most part, I've been on the "anti-blog" side. But in a recent email, I defended them. For the sake of posterity, here was my defense (edited slightly to make sense out of it's original context):

...Blogs are mostly for friends anyway, even if they are viewable by the masses. Maybe someone from the masses stumbles onto a blog they like. Maybe people link to their favorite blogs on their blog, making interconnected rings and webs. If so, great. If not, well, you've always got your friends.

And let's be honest: Blogs are 90% crap. But so is everything else. Sure Vogue goes through a rigorous editorial process, but that doesn't make it not suck. Same with any given reality TV show. Or crappy movie.

Now, that said, blogs can exhibit a special kind of sucking. They can not only be void of interesting content, but they can also be written and punctuated by near illiterates. And their facts can be way off. And no one carries any more weight than anyone else in the "blogoshere." In theory, anyway. I mean, it's all words on a screen, right?

But again, it's not. Different people, and different organizations carry more weight. Obviously, news from Slate's Kausfiles carries more weight than news from some guy who calls himself eatbushin08.

Entertainment blogs work the same way. I read Mike Doughty's blog because he's the former lead singer of Soul Coughing, one of my favorite bands. I read my friend Mike's blog because he's a friend of mine, and in the same journalism program as I am (same goes for Courtney and Lark, since I'm plugging people).

There's plenty of crap out there, and I can choose not to read it. In fact, think of all the things you and I are not reading right now. It's astounding!

Anyway, blogs are out there. They're cheap fast and easy. You get what you pay for. Just add water. (Insert other cliches here). Just understand what you're getting, and where it came from.

(***Yes, in the tradition of poor blogging grammar, I just ended my sentence—neé, my entire entry—with a preposition). Take that Strunk and/or White.)

The Little Pink Pill

Last weekend I had a cold. I spent most of the weekend in a haze of Benadryl, Dayquil, Advil, and Robitussin. After all, I'd rather be in a drug-induced haze than be sick. And it wasn't a good drug-induced haze either.

Benadryl—I'll stick with that because it works best and makes you feel the worst—makes you feel like you are lost in a small bubble. You feel like napping. Constantly. But you can't nap all the time. Sometimes you have to do work. Sometimes you want to watch TV, or do anything to join the world of the living. But you can't. You get too tired to walk. Conversations drift away from you. Even grabbing the remote feels like so...much...work.

And for what? Is the torture of a dripping nose worse than being lost in a pink haze? Are watering eyes worse than slowly floating away from the rest of the world?

Well, in short, yes.

Nothing is worse than having to grab a tissue every thirty seconds. Nothing. Not broken limbs, not burns, not even death. The dripping. With something worse, you can understand why it knocks you out. Dripping feels so inconsequential. But it makes you unable to work, unable to play, unable to enjoy even TV. And worse, it makes you a social pariah. Step back and think of it in abstract terms:

"Sorry, I can't come to work today."
"Why?"
"Well, truth be told, there's liquid dripping out of my nose."
"Where's it coming from?"
"It seems to be some find of bodily fluid."
"That's gross. Stay home. I don't want whatever you've got."

Then there's the sneezing, the itchy watery eyes, the coughing. Everything makes you feel...communicable.

Really, what it all comes down to is snot. People don't like snot. They don't like their own snot, and they certainly don't like anybody else's. They will do anything to avoid it. They will even let you take time off work. And you—because you cannot avoid yourself—will sit at home and take Benadryl.

The Night Sky

There are those who say we've lost the night sky. Especially in urban areas where the light pollution leaks upward to create an orange glow. And it's true. There are fewer stars in the city. In northern Wisconsin you'd swear you can see entire galaxies of stars. And the woods are deadly silent. You hear crickets, maybe the wind, maybe the fire. It's beautiful.

But there's beauty in the city too. Just past my porch, there's a streetlight sifting through the green leaves. The sound of the Orange Line in the distance. A plane crosses the sky like a shooting star, with red and green lights on the wings. The dimly lit porch across the street. The rooms sitting silently inside their windows.

In the wilderness, there's an expanse of nothing that stretches out over bodies of water. In Manitowoc, there's the lighthouse, the marina, Memorial Drive twisting it's way to Two Rivers. In San Diego, there's the Ocean Beach pier. The ghostly restaurant. The waves crashing inward. The lonesome fishermen crawling through the night.

Even if the streets are barren, there's the strings of lights fading into the distance. On a highway in Wyoming there's just you, and the asphalt, and the yellow lines. The darkness is deafening. In the city it's the same. The yellow lines. The symmetry. The angles. The stoplights turning from red to green.

The city. The wilderness. Both beautiful if you know where to look.

Beauty is where you find it.

The Misfit Sweatshirts

The other day I was considering buying a new sweatshirt for myself. A simple black hoodie. Part of the hipster uniform. Then, this morning, as I was digging through my closet, I was reminded that I have five hoodies already. Drat.

I demand perfection of my hoodies. And none of mine quite make the grade. Which is too bad, because a good hoodie is a near-perfect garment. If it gets warm, you unzip it. If you're still warm, take it off and tie it around your waist. Get chilly? Put up the hood. Hands chilly? It's got pockets. Nice big, "throw in the discman and a bottle of water and the hands still fit" pockets. It's also a universal symbol of coolness. It's earthy, punky, sporty, hip-hoppy, blue-collar goodness. It's the fabric of life.

Like I said, I have five. And none of them are quite right. Why? Well, let's go through this one by one (and this is for my own benefit as much as anyone else's...though I guess that could be said of my entire blog):

Dark green zip-up hoodie: Purchased in late high school or early college (1994-'95), dating back to the days of grunge (think of it this way, I used to wear it under flannel shirts). It's been a good soldier over the years, but it's threadbare and has holes in the arm that appear to have been chewed by mice. It's still useful for camping in the summer, or running in the winter, but not wearing in public. Which is a shame, because it fits right and it has a well-cut hood that gives full coverage of the head without covering the eyes.

Royal blue pullover hoodie: Purchased my first year in Madison (1995 or '96). Another well-fitting, well-cut hoodie. It's just a little baggy and the hood gives full coverage without drowning you. However, my then-girlfriend-now-wife borrowed it—well, stole it really—repeatedly for work, leaving it with bleach splatters on the sleeve. Also, I have this "thing" against pullover overlayers. They're either on or off. With a zip up, you can always unzip—or do the partial unzip—to cool off. The possibilities are endless (well, about two and a half feet of zipper endless).

Small black hoodie: Received as a Christmas gift around 2003 or so...between San Diego and Boston for me. It's snug, which makes it a good underlayer (under another jacket, for instance), but slightly less fun as an overlayer. But the biggest drawback is the hood. The hood is cut small, so you don't get full head coverage. It's almost like someone was looking to cut costs and said, "Well, no one actually uses the hood, lets cut some fabric out of that." Which isn't true. I use the hood. Lots of people use it. If nothing else, it makes a good makeshift pillow in a pinch, just fold it under your head and the bench of a picnic table makes a perfect bed.

Black velux-lined hoodie: Also received as a gift for the same Christmas mentioned above (inlaws gave me this, my family the other). The velux lining makes it almost uncomfortably warm. It's also as big as the other is small. I can get lost in it, and I'm a big guy. Nevertheless, I wore it quite a bit, until the zipper got slammed in my closet door. Now the zipper doesn't work. Which, I suppose, is a sign that I should get rid of it. But maybe I can replace the zipper. It's on my list of things to do, but never that high up.

Blue fleece hoodie: Received as a gift, Christmas 2004. An odd thing: A hoodie, but also a fleece. It's comfortable and warm, but big. The hood is like a shroud. Wearing it makes me feel like Emperor Palpatine without the bad skin. Which, I suppose, would be a good thing, if I could shoot thunderbolts from my fingertips.

All this leads to complicated questions: When is it OK to return or get rid of a gift? This year, I kept the fleece hoodie, but returned a shirt and pants. The shirt didn't fit. The pants weren't the right cut. Was I being too picky? Not picky enough?

And what about old clothes? How long to you hang on to something with sentimental but little practical value? How long do you keep items you can only wear running or working? Theoretically, one could stockpile an entire closet full of clothes that could only be worn as grubbies.

How long do you keep that sweatshirt that you only wear once in a while? When do you replace it? When do you give it away?

And what about sweatshops? The apparel industry's a dirty business. Buy clothes, you're probably buying sweatshop...unless you have money to burn and time to hunt and read. The simplest way to combat sweatshops is to buy less. But what not to buy?

We're all consumers. Be it fashion or just essentials...we all "need" (ooh, that's a slippery word) food, clothing, and shelter. The trick is what and how much we need. The trick is being the right kind of consumer. The trick is not to mind.

(Disclaimer: The penultimate line (yeah, I just used that word) was lifted from Mike, who lifted it from Cat and Girl. The last line was lifted from The Search for Signs of Inteligent Life in the Universe, which lifted it from Lawrence of Arabia.)

A Reply to Crash and Annie

Friend Mike's blog recently referred to the monologue from "Bull Durham" (yes, the monologue), which, for those who don't remember, goes like:

"Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days."

It leads me to ask: What exactly do I believe in? Or rather, what would I say I believe in if I was trying to bed Susan Sarandon in the movie "Bull Durham." Well...

I believe in all-night diners and dive bars. I believe in coffee, and smoking cigarettes late at night while driving. I believe that country music is crap, and that God Bless America should be banned from all sporting events. I believe in subways, and walking places, just to see where you're going, just to feel the moving. I believe everyone enjoys a good poop. I believe in small, scribbled liner notes, and 'zines, and anything written by David Sedaris. I believe that Wal-Mart Supercenters steal a little bit of your soul every time you walk inside. And I believe the best of us wander through life like lost souls, occasionally rising up to do something great, then settling back to nowhere.

The Web and the Soda Machine

(For those who know me, you will know that this is one of my favorite arguments)

Is the Web universally accessible?

My argument: Simply put, once you're away from urban areas, easily accessible libraries/computers/Web access can be tough to find. Beyond that, it adds an extra "layer" to the process that many people don't have time for.

It's easy for me to read Web content because my computer (and cable modem access) is sitting in my bedroom. I can read in my PJs if I want. I can read before running out the door for work. I can read the minute I get home. I can read while I cook, while I do laundry. If I had to go somewhere else, I wouldn't use the Web nearly as much.

This simple "one-step" access to the Web costs money: Money for a computer. Money for an Internet connection (esp. a high-speed one). Money to keep both up to date as technology improves (i.e. most active computer users purchase a new computer every five years, if not more).

Ergo, Web access is constrained by money. Ergo, the Web discriminates.

Of course, less than 50% of the population votes anyway. Maybe people just don't care to read Web content. Which leads me back to my initial "food service" based view of the world, which is: People don't think, people don't read, and people don't listen.

All problems, from the jammed ice machine to world poverty, can be linked to those three causes. Which leads me to one of my favorite food service quotes (which—I believe—was coined by Aaron O'Neil): "Maybe that soda machine would work better if you took the 'out of order' sign off it."

Sadly Seeking the Air-Conditioned Nightmare

It's hot and muggy in Boston again. My third-floor bedroom/office is sweltering. So I've decided to seek out cooler climates in the computer labs at Emerson College. Yesterday I tended bar at the Red Hat. I was happy to do it. The bar was air-conditioned.

When I was younger, I had several misconceptions about the human body. I used to believe that if you didn't shower, you're body would adjust in such a way that your natural odor wouldn't be offensive. I considered deodorant a consumerist plot for much the same reason. Now I realize I just stunk. I spent freshman year of college in a cloud of stench, and my body never "adjusted".

I felt much the same way about air-conditioning. I thought that, if you remain exposed to heat, you become adapted to it. So I embraced heat. And all I did was sweat.

Now I do whatever I can to find air-conditioning (neither my car or apartment have AC). I shop. I work. I go to coffee shops. I go to class early and stay late.

It's odd that I should seek out even the very things I hate—well...OK, I don't really hate any of those things, but I have no real reason to seek them out either. I seek shelter in the very boxes people rail against. Just to avoid my sweltering home.

On Politics

I suppose there are those who would try to read into my politics from reading this. So I will say this: Above all, I consider myself a pragmatist. A bemused, skeptical spectator. I'm skeptical of things the Bush administration does, just as I was skeptical of Clinton, just as I'm skeptical of Mayor Mumbles.

Politics at all levels is an act of self-preservation. Those in power do what is required to stay in power. Sometimes this involves doing what's best for the many. Sometimes it involves what's best for a few. The job of the journalist (or anyone, in a democracy) is to observe and sort those actions out, to discover who benefits and why.

I Suppose I Ought...

...to treat this more like a blog and less like a repository for all my old crap. Since it is...well...a blog.

I like what I've written so far, but it's awkward for me to worry about editing what I write before I write it. It keeps me from writing. Well, it's one of the things that keeps me from writing...Along with: Work, sleep, school, friends, booze, TV, reading, music, the Internet, free cell, the Green Bay Packers, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Red Hat, ESPN Classic, food, heat, cold, inertia, our two-party political system, and just plain writer's block. And I hate freedom. So there's that.

Writing blogs should be like playing jazz. You just do it. You can practice it. You can mess around with it. You can try to polish it. But--ultimately--it comes down to you, your instrument, and a moment in time. You do your best to capture that moment in time. Then you move on.

There are those who may be disappointed in the new (attempted) framework of LIAL (Briesemeister). Others will be happy (Lark). Most won't care. And that's why I write. Because people don't care.

So, lord help me, I will try to make LIAL more of a raw, live feed of my life. And less like the 'zine I pasted together those many years ago.