WTF is "auld acquaintance," anyway?
So while I'm officially three or so weeks shy of my "blogiversary" (Christ, that's a god-awful bastardization of already bastardized English.), the end of the Gregorian calendar year has got me thinking about the state of this non-weblog. I've been doing it for nearly a year now (first entry: January 15, '01), and this may very well be my last entry of aught-one. So what does all this mean?
Hell if I know.
I know that writing something every day, even if it's only a coupla hundred words, has made me a helluvalot better writer. I guess it's like working out or something, using the muscles, etc., but it's more than that. I get bored really easily, and I find I can't tolerate reading, and much less writing, about the same stuff the same way everyday. So knowing that I have to do this has made me do new things, seek out new experiences, boldly go places I otherwise wouldn't have gone, if only to have new stuff to write about. It's also made me use a thesaurus a lot.
Now as I am disdainful of the phenomenon of weblogging and the "community" it's engendered, I haven't been warmly embraced by said community. I see this as a good thing. A very good thing. But that hasn't stopped me from making friends with some of the more sordid, fringe elements of the weblogging community. Which has been super sweet.
So, as an indirect result of this journal, I've become a better writer, gotten out more, made lasting friendships, and gotten the occasional random email from someone saying, "Yes! You are not completely demented! I feel the exact same way about X thing." All in all, pretty priceless stuff I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. So I guess the half-hour I spend writing this thing — and the countless other hours I spend thinking about and agonizing over what the fuck I'm gonna write about — might be worth it after all. ßßß
What's Wrong Is Everywhere
What is it about the holidays that makes people who are normally just awful become completely monstrous?
Me and T went to see "Proof" last night, which wasn't nearly as good as I wanted it to be, but that's another matter entirely. But we're going to the theater (works best if you pronounce it "THEE-a-tah," in the faux British style), and I guess I expect a theater crowd to be — I don't know — civilized? No such luck.
In the 20 or so minutes between when we arrived at the joint and when the curtain went up, we got into no fewer than three (admittedly minor) altercations with our fellow theatregoers. I'm in a suit here, mind, and Tracy is dressed to the nines and looking fabulous. So it's not because we look like extras from The Road Warrior that they're treating us like shit. It must just be that they're frustrated, repressed, bitter old white people. And they were all white people.
The play itself was good, I think. My normal M.O. is to see/hear/experience something and immediately pass judgment on it, but I want to sit with it and think about it for a while. But my initial reaction is that "Proof" was a good, slick, well-done New York theater piece. And that's not enough for me.
It was billed as a play about mathematics and mathematicians, but it had no math in it. Now I understand you have to make certain sacrifices for your audience; there's no way you can explain a 40-page proof in a 90-minute play. But to leave the math completely out of it seemed odd. And more disappointing still was the fact that there seemed to be no effort to establish the math part as a metastructure for the play. No math allegory, no math metaphor, no math insight into the characters and how they're in relationship to one another. If there's a damning criticism of the play, that would be it. Oh, and the fact that the lead actress couldn't act her way out of a wet paper sack.
So much for withholding judgment, huh??
Happy Birthday, Billy Bragg!
Many, many happy returns, you courageous commie bastard. You are my hero. ßßß
Public vs. Private Transit
So a funny thing happened to me on my way to work today: I drove. Yup, I forwent the public transit option, said "screw you" to the environment, and drove the Family Truckster over the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. Unllike BART, the ride was smooth, the company was good (Yeah, I was alone.), and I made it door to door in about 20 minutes; a net savings of 40 minutes on my average commute. Fabulous. Sadly, this is a complete and total aberration: I left two hours later that I normally do, and holiday-time traffic is exceptionally light.
And then there's always the other consideration: the going home part. If I leave work at or around 5, I can expect to arrive at home sometime after 6. Leave at 7, and I'll be home by 7:25. Fortunately we're going to see Proof tonight, so we'll miss the evening commute by some four or so hours. But what a difference it's made in my mental and emotional state already. I'll have to remember to work this into the schedule, along with working from home and the random day off in the middle of the week.
Who were the ad wizards who came up with this one?
OK, so someone tell me what our executive team was thinking when they bought us a goddamn Xbox?!? Now I'm not one to complain about company-sanctioned video-game-playing on company time, but come on — was our productivity not low enough?? Were the flip-flop-wearing network admin guys getting too much done in between games of Quake and EverQuest?? I mean, really.
Now at any given time of day, half our 22-person company is clustered around the TV oooing and ahhing over the exploits of the losers playing Halo. Half of me really wants to get the hell outta this place, and the other half knows that that would probably require me to do some actual work, which would actually suck. So I'm still here. Could be a completely different story come 01/02/02, though. ... ßßß
All Is Forgiven
So everything is right again in the band camp. No, not that band camp; I meant all the band-related stuff I was bitching about yesterday and last week. The amplifier I purchased on eBay got all fixed up, and hopefully the seller will make good on his offer of paying for the repair. Everyone showed up for rehearsal more or less on time last night, and I got to fire up the SVT stack (that's a really big, loud, and fancy bass amp for those of you who don't know) for the first time. Oh, sweet baby Jesus, what a joyful noise.
There's nothing like 300 watts of all-tube power driving eight 10-inch speakers. Warm, full, and loud as hell. Good god almighty. It was a beautiful thing. We also had a singer guy come out to audition who must have been separated at birth from Kevin Corrigan. Not only was he a dead ringer for the guy, but he sounded and acted exactly like him. Too weird.
The only other thing that's keeping me going is the fact that my company, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to close from the December 22 through January 1, reopening on the 2nd. And we're being paid for it. That is, if the place is still around when we return in '02. I'm kinda half-expecting to return on the 2nd to find the place boarded up with no forwarding address. But we'll see.
But whether or not I have a job in 2002 is less important than having 11 days of uninterrupted peace. Eleven nights to stay up and watch whatever terrible TV is on or actually make some headway on Infinite Jest. Eleven mornings where I won't be awoken by an alarm clock. Eleven days where I will not have to commute. Eleven days in which to do whatever the hell I please. Man, can I not wait for this.
If I can only survive the rest of this week, and band practice tonight, that play tomorrow night, and that art opening thing on Thursday, all will be well. Won't it? Yes, I imagine it will. ßßß
When Bad Weekends Happen to Good People
So this weekend turned out nothing at all like I predicted in Friday's post, apart from getting my hairs cut (see sham cam picture on left). We did see a movie — the highly anticipated (by me, at least) Waking Life. Boy, did that ever suck. What an awful, pseudointellectual, self-indulgent piece of crap. I want my five bucks and two hours of my life back, please. What a waste.
And then there were the band practices that weren't. I got stood up not once, but twice for practice this weekend. Fucking musicians. Now I know why you normal people think we're seedy, irresponsible, overgrown children. It's because we are.
And then there was the cubital tunnel syndrome I developed over Friday night/Saturday morning. Now before you go and get the idea that I'm some kind of crazy hypochondriac, what with the pleurisy and other assorted exotic conditions, I ain't. I think I slept weirdly on my left arm, and woke up in so much pain that I thought I was gonna throw up. I had very specific symptoms: pain in the inside of my left elbow and on the outside of my left shoulder.
So I logged on to the trusty Internet, which offers the sum total of human knowledge at your fingertips, and looked for some anatomical drawrings of the elbow-shoulder assembly. I found great info on the fabulous SOAR Medical Library and, after a brief misdiagnosis as a biceps tendon problem, I realized I had all the classic symptoms of the aforementioned cubital tunnel syndrome. Lots of Advil later, my ulnar nerve was back in business. God bless the Internet.
Mac and Netscape Users, Rejoice
OK, so maybe "rejoice" is too strong a word, but I finally got off my lazy ass after almost 9 months and fixed some of my buggy-ass code. Ever since I redesigned this site and made it table-free, it's been blowing up browsers right and left, in particular Netscape 4.x (any platform) and on just about every browser on a Mac. So after much ado, I troubleshot and repaired said code so that blawg.com now renders perfectly on Netscape 6 and Opera for Mac, and is readable (as plain text, without fancy formatting) in Netscape 4.x on PC and Mac.
Sadly, Internet Exploder for Mac still lives up to its name, and will combust when it tries to load this page. But as an Opera user and advocate, I urge all of you in the strongest possible terms to download this free and fabulous browser. It's improved functionality, customizability (is that a word?), and all-around coolness totally outweigh the minor inconvenience of the persistent banner you get with the free version. So download it today, and tell Bill Gates and Steve Case to shove it! ßßß
Don't miss last week's brilliant insight.
