Well, you won't see me for at least the next week or so.

Take care.

A week or two ago I posted that Tacoma was listed as the most stressful in the nation. Well, another computation says that it's not Tacoma, but Galveston.

Galveston is a neat enough place to visit. There are beaches (or what passes for a "beach" around here), there's the Strand. But there is something a little bit unsettling about the place, so this doesn't surprise me. There's a ton of homeless people and, as the Houston Press spotlighted recently, a ton of icky prostitutes.

Residents, however, strongly disagree:

The article appeared in the November issue of Self Magazine. Based on several factors compiled and mathematically formulated, Galveston, according to Self, is the most stressful place to live in America.

"I couldn't think of anything further from the truth," said Mike Dean of Yaga's Café.

It didn't sound right to us, either. So we decided to try and find some of the more stressful jobs in Galveston County, and we decided doing autopsies would be somewhat stressful.

Chief Medical Examiner Stephen Pustilnik told Eyewitness News, "This is one of the least stressful places I've lived and or worked. And I enjoy it tremendously."

Lifelong islander Vic Maceo heads up the beach patrol. It may seem like easy living, but he has to make sure 5 million visitors a year don't drown.

He said, "If we were any more laid back, we'd never get anything done."

Not having spent much time their first-hand, I can't say much about it except that the ferry is to die for.

[via Callie]

I don't know what's more disturbing about the walls of the Truckstop. Is it that there are dozens of flies all over the wall or that they're all dead?

Or is it the art work?

These are pictures from the men's room at the Truckstop. I put them in the "Read More" section because they're a bit graphic. If you're eating and have a weak stomach, you might want to hold off taking a look (or prepare yourself). It's nothing too grotesque, but I wanted to warn you guys.

[Read More!]

I've commented on it in the past, but historically speaking I've been drawn to partners with political convictions that are opposed to mine. It can make things either more difficult or interesting in a relationship depending on the nature of the disagreements. In some cases we seem invariably opposed. Both Ora and Audrey, for instance, voted for Dole in 1996 when I voted for Clinton, but as I've moved to the right they have found themselves voting to the left of the Democratic Party. Naturally, it would be unlikely to find someone who shares my views across the board, but the extent to which I attract and am attracted to lefties is statistically odd and I have graphical proof.

[Read More!]

Congratulations! You're Pippin!


Which Lord of the Rings character and personality problem are you?
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You are Proverbs.


Which book of the Bible are you?
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[Owen]

Amy Hemphill links to a NYT article and writes about gender and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Oh, okay, now I get it. She didn't UNDERSTAND the films, so girls must not like them. This aspect of Sam's character is part of the POINT of the story. His depth of humanity and affection for Frodo is part of why the story goes the way it does. (No spoilers here in case there are those who haven't seen it yet.) His character is MEANT to stand out in this way. She just missed the point.

Beyond my general annoyance at any sort of "all people of this category feel this way", and specifically at "all girls [sic] don't like this particularly male thing" assertions, this article just proved that, beyond her clear misunderstanding of women, she also had a vast misunderstanding of these films. I'm surprised some editor above her didn't suggest some serious rewrites of this article, or can it altogether. I know that most newspapers have been lowering their journalistic standards of late to appeal to a wider audience, but this is just silly.

If it hadn't been for a female-type, I actually probably never would have gotten around to see LOTR. I mostly went because she asked me to and there was sort of something going on between us at the time. It's not that I didn't want to see the movie, but I don't go to the theatres much these days and wasn't going to make an exception for LOTR. I've never read Tolkien's work and medieval magic fantasy does not particularly interest me.

Despite that, I'm extremely glad that Rosalinda drug me out to see the first and second parts and I greatly anticipated the third. But for how much that I loved the movies, Rosalinda and Audrey are two of the most interested people in them that I know. Both female and running contrary to the NYT article.

That said, I'm not entirely sure that the article is entirely off base. Speaking in generalities, of course. For my experience, the things that I loved most about the movies are very male things. War! Adventure! Very little time spent on inane love subplots!! Inversely, the more humanistic side of me (one might call it feminine) were what I considered its weakest points. The character development was only a couple notches above mediocre. With the exception of Sam, I didn't find any of them particularly compelling up to and including Aragorn and (especially) Frodo.

I should note that the extended version of the second movie does flesh the characters out a lot more and makes relatively minor characters some of the most compelling in the series. I guess cuts had to be made somewhere to bring it down to only three or so hours, but I think it was the more human areas that were cut in favor of action and the clash of good and evil. Those are generally things that guys prefer.

Not that I begrudge Amy her enjoyment of the series or think because she's female she can't truly "get it." I think I just agreed with the writer's assessment of the movie's stronger and weaker points a bit more.

One of the first people I met at the truckstop is a guy we call Cowboy Larry. Physically, Larry was most distinctively noticeable by how much he looked like... well, a cowboy. Not just the hat, though he had one and wore it well, but his stoic demeanor, persistent squint, and unique Texas drawl (when he's sober and it doesn't come out squeaky). If I ever needed to cast a cowboy for a part in a movie, he would be perfect.

Over the course of my time at the Truckstop while working for UFC, I saw Larry's life fall apart, piece by piece. Larry was, to say the least, an alcoholic. One of the most alcoholic people that I've ever known. The first thing that he lost was his job. He showed up to work tanked one too many times. Not long after that, his wife left him for Joe Bob, another regular of the Truckstop (since the Truckstop is a social circle, couples breaking up and coupling with others from the 'stop is not unusual). Without a job or a wife with a job, he was evicted from his trailer park and the trailer was repossessed. By the time I lost my own job with UFC, he was living in his van.

At one point, he was so strapped up for cash that he staged an accident. There is a particular parking spot at the Truckstop that has always been a problem area. It amazes me that the proprietors don't mark it off, but for whatever reason they never did. For two weeks he parked his van there hoping that a semi would back in to it. He needed a couple hundred dollars to make a trip to Arizona to see his daughter. Sure enough, eventually a flat-bed 18-wheeler backed into it, hammering the door and shattering the window. Despite the fact that it was 40 degrees out and that's where he had to sleep, he couldn't have been more excited.

"Hot damn! I'm gooooin' ta Arizona!"

That was only a couple weeks before I lost my job, so I never found out how the trip went.

Since I started going back there I have been seeing him more often. Or at least I had been, he hasn't been around lately (which seems to be a pattern lately, which I'll get to on a later post). I rarely drink alcohol at the Truckstop. Kinda a shame, since certain people offer to buy me beer regularly. It used to be because I was on lunch break but these days it's cause I'm usually headed somewhere afterwards. Instead, I just gulp on Mountain Dew.

The last time I saw Larry, he and Hiram were discussing addiction. Cigarettes, alcohol, and cocaine. With the stench of the alcohol that has ruined his life on his breath, he pointed to my Mountain Dew and said, "that [caffiene and sugar] stuff will fuck you up."

Tip of the Day: When your coworker says that he wants to share with you the "sickest thought ever" and everyone around you immediately plugs their ears and starts saying "la la la la la" then it's best to do the same. Chances are that (a) they know why they're doing what they're doing, (b) their 'la's won't be loud enough to prevent you from hearing, and (c) you'll wish that your ears were plugged and the 'la's were indeed loud enough. On the other hand, sometimes after the initial period of revulsion your mind will be so horrified that you will block it out and not be able to share it with the readers of your blog. Your blog readers, if they know what's good for them, will then be very grateful.

I got my first review a couple of days ago. I'd make it humorous but I actually got really good marks with a handshake and a "keep up the good work" when it's over.

I missed my first night of work last night. With only seven hours of sleep in the previous two days, I almost fell asleep on the road driving up there. I was supposed to take a test over the employee handbook. I really could care less about it, except that (a) if we don't get 90% we have to take it again and if we don't get 90% on the second (harder) test, we're suspended until we can get 90% and (b) since the first day I've called in was a test day, I wonder if I might have chucked away all the good will I'd apparently bought up to justify a "keep up the good work" review.

There are presently five people on third shift. The last day I was there had four people working the shift. I almost intentionally screwed up tape copying so that I would have to do it again. The shift supervisor said that if I had done so, he would have understood. He then taught me how to screw up tape copying so that it takes twice as long. Now there are going to be five people. Can two people screw up tape copying as easily as one? I hope so...

On the last entry, I hit the backspace and subsequently freaked out. Somewhere, an internal programmer who has probably long-since stopped working at Gattaca is probably laughing.

They upgraded the internal software. They said in the message that it should be easier to use. It sure is as now it doesn't work at all and therefore I don't have to use it. It doesn't get much easier than that, does it?

There is a gay guy named Adrian that works in the OCD. Nobody likes him very much. At first I wondered if it was because he was a bit feminine. I later found out that it was just that he was a really big asshole. It just goes to show that the gay population isn't very different from the straight one, assholes and all.

Mr. Smith was toiling around with the schedules (and moving me to second shift was a part of that) in order to get Adrian moved to first shift because he's such a darn good employee (his brown-nosing is one of the many reasons that no one likes him). He even tried to buck the seniority system and move Adrian ahead of another guy, but the other guy noticed and so Adrian is stuck on second shift. Smith then turned around and tried to get two first-shifters moved out to RSI. But now Adrian is getting moved to programming (which is good as social interaction is forbidden in the programming dept.) in a few weeks and Smith is going to have to fill both Adrian's spot as well as the two that he was having moved to RSI.

Adrian and I are going to be working second shift on Saturdays alone. I'm actually looking forward to it! Adrian makes a habbit out of doing all of these little things that make him look good, but never doing the time consuming tasks that people don't generally get a whole lot of credit for. That means I will actually have something to do!

I really think that I might be a bad apple. When I first got there, very few people spoke negatively of the company. Now I've got all three of the guys that are newer than me non-stop bitching about what BS the job and company are. Yesterday I started hearing first shift complain about it. Viva la Revolucion!

I found out that we in OCD are actually security officers as well. I knew that one of our jobs was to monitor the security monitors, but I thought that was the extent of it. Not so. If recruiting has a security concern (if, for instance, someone doesn't get a job they think they ought to), they hit a buzzer and an alarm goes off in OCD. We are then supposed to go and resolve the situation. Unfortunately, they don't give us a poll to slide down. That would be badass cool.

I'm actually getting used to the company. I'm starting to think that if the job itself didn't suck so bad, I could actually stay there. Pray for me, y'all!

I had an abnormally high hit-count yesterday. A lot of it came from a message board. I genuinely like it when I get hits from outside the blogosphere (though people stopping by for pictures of Scott Peterson nude are getting old... ick) because it introduces people to my writing that ordinarily wouldn't be stopping by.

So with baited breath I clicked on the link that brought people to my humble page only to find out that I'm merely a club in a flame war.

Well, glad to be of service, I guess.

My best friend Jay and his band has finally put their first CD together! It's called Standing Room Only and I'm listening to it now.

Jay has been a musician for longer than I've known him, and that's a really long time. When I was younger I gave him a hard time for reasons I cannot for the life of me recall (and that would assuredly make no sense to my 25 year old self the way it did with my 12 year old self). At some belated point I realized the talent that he had.

I've always been the creative sort, but music has really never been my forte. I am good at telling a story in any number of ways. Short stories, novels, blog posts, emails, and even in person. But musical talent requires something differently entirely. It requires a certain innate sense of beat. No matter how much I mimic it, I don't have it. Jay, on the other hand, does. He released a CD some time ago under the Courtesy Flush name as well as single songs here and there. Oh yeah, and he does almost all of the music for NLP!

This CD is great. I've been listening to it solid for the last couple of days. The Drinks are by no means "Jay's" band. There are three other very talented members that put on great live shows in Waco and Houston (Spring, actually). They've mostly subsided on covers because they haven't had something to show off to make a mark as an originals band. Now they do.

Most of my favorite songs were written by him. The best one on the CD was one I wasn't even aware that he wrote until I mentioned the song to him. This CD has been a long time coming and, as I listen to it, I could not be more proud to have Jay as my best friend.

Name: Jason Paris
Alias: No
AKA: Jay
Type: ENFP
Born: 1979
Base of Operations: Waco, TX
Occupation: College student
Superpower: Music vitruoso
Loss Vulnerability: Procrastination
Short Version: Best friend
Long Version:
Jay doesn't remember, but he and I first met in pre-kindergarten. The only thing I remember is someone saying "Hey! So-and-so is here!" I couldn't remember his name, but he was probably at the apex of his popularity at that point. I don't recall talking to him.

Flash forward to the first grade. He and I had Mrs. Mikelson and almost instanty became really good friends. We had the same second grade teacher as well and by the time that ended, he was competing with Frank to be my best friend. By the time we were in the fourth grade we were doing radio movies together as "AJ Productions." Picture two 11 year olds improvising for 90 minutes and you'll get a pretty clear idea of how good those were. By junior high we were creating movies together and shifted AJP towards doing comedy movies with recurring characters put in different situations (soldiers, ministers, athletes, etc.). They were marginally better, but perhaps only because they were not as excruciatingly long. By the time we hit high school, we were making video movies that were cute and, thankfully, even shorter.

We became even closer in high school as we both circled our lives around ACME. Unfortunately two close as we found ourselves repeatedly competing for the same female-types. Somehow, we survived that and other adolescent conflicts.

We parted ways when the time for college came. I went local to the University of Houston while he went off to Baylor University in Waco. After a year or so, I tried like the dickens to get him to transfer, but it was not to be. We were somewhat distant at first, but once ICQ came around we stayed in contact beyond periodic emails and our friendship was renewed. When we joined with Adam and Brian to form No-Lyfe Productions we started spending even more time together and were reunited creatively.

He remains one of the biggest sacrifices I'm making by leaving Texas, though we've been talking of creative avenues that we can pursue. He's finishing up school at Baylor and will head out to Austin, Florida, or California when he finishes that in May of 2004.

I couldn't help but find this a little bit hilarious:

High-definition television - which shows pictures that are larger and nearly five times as sharp as those on a regular set - has the image-obsessed television business worried that a growing audience will see more reality than it wants: the wrinkles on once-ageless actors, the cracks in set walls, the brush strokes on painted backdrops. To avoid turning off viewers, Hollywood's illusion specialists in makeup, set design and lighting are finding ways to counter HDTV's less-forgiving eye.

High-definition "really scared the hell out of us at first because the images are so sharp," says Bruce Grayson, head makeup artist for the Academy Awards, which were broadcast in high definition for the first time last spring. "A blemish on a face becomes a volcano."

As one who wants more fat chicks on TV, I have little sympathy.

I decided some time ago that I would someday make a movie. Then it seemed sooner rather than later, but I will someday. When I do, I have already decided that the first thing I'm going to do is get people who look real. Twenty extra pounds? No problem! Flat-chested? So are a lot of people!

It'll be my schtick! Everyone needs a schtick!

I've been pretty silent on the rail issue. The main reason being that I don't come down really hard either way in the abstract. I think rail could well be a part of the long-term solution for Houston commuters. That said, I find the pro-rail side of the debate to be particularly obnoxious and dogmatic. When it's pointed out that rail's ability to handle a city as geographically diverse as Houston, they talk about changing Houston's geography. The author in particular doesn't say much about rail, but I can guarantee you that everyone nodding in agreement with him supports it. Support of rail isn't so much about effective transit as it is about lifestyle.

It's no surprise then that the rail Houston eventually got was catered to those that supported it. Instead of getting rail to ease the traffic from the icky sprawling and dumb growth suburbs where all those people who vote Republican live, it goes from inside the loop to... well, inside the loop. In any other circumstances, a multimillion dollar construction project that connected wealthier neighborhoods (Med center) to places that only rich people can afford (downtown) so that they don't have to ride with those icky poor people (bus riders) would be lambasted by liberals. But it's rail, so that makes it okay.

As such, I don't expect this to make much of a dent in their perspective:

Five Houston Chronicle reporters assembled in a randomly chosen subdivision one morning last week to conduct a race to the newspaper's main office on Texas Avenue downtown. One reporter drove alone from Quail Valley, two carpooled, a fourth rode an express bus and the other drove to the Fannin South Park & Ride and hopped on the train.

The solo driver and the carpool pair, each using U.S. 59, arrived in a parking garage near the newspaper within a minute of each other and rode the same elevator down, walking into the newspaper simultaneously. The bus rider arrived 15 minutes later, while the train passenger came in last, rolling in after a commute of 1 hour, 15 minutes.

The Chronicle calculated the expense of the commute by adding parking fees and transit fares and estimating a cost of 37.5 cents per mile driven. The bus was the least expensive.

But it won't make Houston a world-class city! It also requires roads! And isn't as cool!

The fact that rail's primary selling factor was that the rest of the world will like us more is a pretty damning indictment of, well, a rational reason to build the rail that we have.

The last part that I found interesting (and like Kevin, am surprised the Chronicle had the courage to print), was this:

Forlano points out that the commute used to be much worse before the Texas Department of Transportation widened most parts of the Southwest Freeway in recent years.

But building more roads doesn't work. Liberals who support rail tell me so.

Warliberal is one of my few daily reads, so this isn't a knock on him specifically, but I am soooooooo tired of this logic:

How you can tell Wesley Clark is a threat

InstaPundit is turning into a bash-the-General zone.

Or maybe - just mayyyyybe - he actually just doesn't like Clark. By this logic, the only candidates Republican aren't afraid of are the ones they don't care enough to mention. If Republicans say "We like Lieberman more than Dean" it's obvious that they're just scared of the latter cause he's such a darn credible candidate!

For my part, the candidate I'm most worried about is John Edwards (whom Warliberal endorsed, by-the-by). But I don't say that many negative things about him. Why? Well, next to Lieberman, he's probably the one I'd view most favorably in the Democratic field should a Dem win the presidency. Is it that outrageous to think that Reynolds (who is right-of-center, but not really a Republican much less a party-liner) actually would prefer someone other than Clark gets the nomination? Or, absent a Democrat he actually likes, he just knocks those getting the most publicity?

Let me put it this way: In 2000, did Democrats honestly thought Bush or McCain was the more likely Republican to win the presidency? Nearly every Democrat I know felt that McCain was the bigger threat. Yet most of them had more negative things to say about Bush. Why? Because back then they were interested in the political center and (rightly) saw that McCain had it made.

For my part, I don't think McCain would have won the election and thought so at the time. Most Democrats I suggested that to argued with me on that point.

I saw a UFO last night. From Saturn!

I was driving northbound on 610 and there is was, hovering in the sky above. It looked circular... just like in the movies! I kept an eye on it (much to the dismay of the drivers around me) to discern where this UFO was from and what it might be doing visiting our fair town.

Then suddenly out of the blue I saw it... it said "Saturn."

Well, Saturnians (?), welcome to Houston. Stick around for the Super Bowl! [Read More!]

If only George W. Bush believed what John Kerry purported to believe in 1996:

"I think we can reduce the size of Washington," Kerry said on January 6, 1996. "Get rid of the Energy Department. Get rid of the Agriculture Department, or at least render it three-quarters the size it is today; there are more agriculture bureaucrats than there are farmers in this country"

There's apparently a new book out on middle class bankrupcy that looks interesting. It appears to validate what I've long thought the cause of many families' finances: Mortgages.

The average household has a lot more amenities than it used to. There are three and four (and five) car families, DVD players, HDTVs, and computers. While some may view this as excess (and in many cases it is), since the costs of all these products have gone down, they don't shoulder much of the blame.

Houses, on the other hand, are a bigger issue. Perhaps having grown up in Clear Lake I'm colored by my experiences. I've seen a number of families move from nice neighborhoods to really nice neighborhoods in large part because they could. As Elizabeth Warren suggests in her book, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke, many married couples are counting on two incomes and are buying houses accordingly.

It reminds me of Sterling Chemical, a company which I've probably talked about before and will talk about again. If you've heard it, skip this paragraph. Before the days of Internet IPO's there were a series of chemical ones in the Houston area. One of them was Sterling Chemical. Overnight engineers became millionaires. Many moved into houses more befitting of their newfound wealth. When the dividends stopped coming around, though, they were left in such a crunch that housewives that hadn't worked since they sent hubby through grad school were having to re-enter the workforce.

The moral of the story is to live below your means. There are certain concessions you cannot (and should not) make regarding the well-being of your family. But moving from a lower-middle class neighborhood such as Seabrook to an upper-middle class one such as Middlebrook ought to be viewed as a luxury.

In the greater Clear Lake area there are three high schools, two of which are Clear Lake High and Clear Creek High. CLHS is the superior of the two by all accounts, recieving more recognition and awards than its older counterpart, CCHS. In all honesty, though, the difference between the two is marginal, but the difference in housing is huge.

My intermediate school, Seabrook, is probably more like Creek than Lake. There were a lot more thugs, more troublemakers, and until it became a magnet school, was inferior to Clear Lake Intermediate. At the same time, I got as good an education as I could have expected. Not so much because of the school, but because of my parents.

I wonder if many are so fixated on buying houses with the best schools because they expect the schools to educate their children. Of course, to a degree that's a school's job. But handing them off to a school for eight hours a day is placing an awful lot of power outside your control. Working longer hours (and thus being less able to work with them and staying on top of their efforts) to afford that is crazy.

There were a lot of troublemakers at Seabrook, but there were a lot of good kids. They lived in the same neighborhoods, ate at the same places. They hung out in different circles and, more often than not, had very different home lives. Parents worried about their kids falling in with the "bad crowd" ought to spend more time asking themselves what they can personally do to prevent that from happening that doesn't involve a mortgage that they can't afford.

The worst thing - which I see often - is making the size and neighborhood of a house a status symbol. Viewing a house as an investment where you must buy an expensive one to get a good return is asking for bankrupcy.

Rodney Crowell is playing on satellite FREEVIEW. Crowell is a well-regarded if not remarkably well-known musician, so it's not a surprise. I was surprised, however, to see Will Kimbrough playing lead guitar.

Kimbrough comes to Texas from time to time. Caught a show at the Mucky Duck once and was sufficiently impressed to buy both his CDs.

Of all the unlamented products to lament, who in the world would dedicate a site to saving Surge cola?

Dateline: January 15, 2004 -

When I was a kid, there used to be this game called Opposite Day. We'd either spend all day saying things that were the opposite of true or doing things opposite of the way they were always done. Audrey and I played that game last night.

When making plans to see Return of the King, I decided that I didn't want to see it alone. I had a non-date date with Rosalinda the previous two installments. She and I weren't dating, but everyone around me wanted us to be. She was a big time D&D-type and was familiar with the books and therefore could explain things to me. Rosalinda has since left Texas, so I was looking for someone to watch it with and Audrey came to mind. We'd been hanging out since she wanted to mend fences a couple months ago. She was very enthusiastic about the idea and so we got together and that's when Audrey and I played our own version of Opposite Day:

At the last minute a few of her friends wanted to come along. I've never particularly gotten along with her friends and it had caused problems with Audrey in the past. There were times that I was the only one she was able to actually ever say "no" to. Tonight, however, she told them that she didn't want them to go. We actually get a night alone, something that I would have killed for three years ago but now seems as natural as can be.

We make plans to meet at the Adobe Cafe. I run a little late, but I'm not particularly worried since Audrey was always late to everything we'd ever done together. When I get there, she mentions that she's been waiting for fifteen minutes. Given our history, she couldn't get as mad about it as I usually did, but she doesn't look like she wants to be mad. When I apologize, she says that she's just happy that I showed up at all. That's exactly what I would have said to her, once upon a time.

We talk about everything under the sun as we ate. Without all the sour spots and Subjects That Dare Not Be Named, conversation is a lot easier. There are no uncomfortable gaps - no deadly moments of silence where are were left to wonder what the other is thinking and automatically expect the worst. She says nothing that makes me feel hurt or angry. I say nothing that made her feel indignant or guilty. We don't talk in endless circles about our past and where we're headed. We talk about subjects we enjoy talking about and have a good time doing it.

We still have a little time to kill before the movie starts so we sit by the fountain and talk some more. When she puts her head on my shoulder, I don't feel like I'm in heaven. She's not trying to get anything from me.

When we get to the theater, we don't sit a seat apart as was once the unfortunate norm. She looks at me watch the movie periodically the same way I had once looked at her. She puts her hand out and I almost take it. We look away and put our hands on our lap when we realize this isn't then. We're not holding on to what we once had anymore.

When the movie finished, I asked if she wants to call it an evening since she has to get up early tomorrow morning. She suggests that we hang out a little longer and share a couple drinks at Jillian's. There we talk about a few more things. We have the same rhythm that we had earlier in the evening. She lightly throws humorous jabs my way and, instead of getting angry, I lightly throw some back at her. I tell her something that has been upsetting me (that for once has nothing to do with her or romantic relationships) and instead of trying to out-do me, she just listens.

After a couple drinks we go out to the parking lot. She tells me that she doesn't want the night to end. She used to always have a reason for the night to end early. I told her that she needed to get home and get some sleep. I used to never take how much rest she needed - or what she needed to be doing - into consideration.

As I watch her get into her car, I wonder that if things had been this way three years ago, could we have been saved? I don't know, but I do know that the eleven months we spent fighting could instead be filled with more positive memories I could look back on with a smile instead of a grimace. Then I think about how catastrophic the collapse was. Could that have been avoided? If we'd avoided it, would I have met Eel? That's not a chance I would take. As cheesy as it sounds, as long as Eel remains at the end of that road, I'd go through every shout, doubt, and tear all over again. If Audrey's shroud kept me single for when Eel came along, it's a shroud I'll accept having had.

When Audrey and I first met, we were both in relationships. We got along so much better then. Without the pressure of falling in love, over three years ago we fell in love. At the very end, when we finally let go of one another, the pressure was gone and things were suddenly almost resurrected. When we've gotten beyond ourselves, the fireworks start going off.

But not today. Today is Opposite Day.

Name: Audrey Elciem
Alias: Yes
AKA: Elciem, Ellie, Juri
Type: INFP
Born: 1978
Base of Operations: Houston, TX
Occupation: Personal secretary
Short Version: Love interest from November 2000 to October 2001.
Long Version:
The first time I saw Audrey was at Akon 1999. I didn't actually meet her, but when I saw her she immediately grabbed my attention. I couldn't tell if she was someone that I knew or someone that I really wanted to know, but I knew she was one or the other. I also met Jessica that weekend and so nothing came of it. I knew that she went to the University of Houston (she was hanging with the UH anime club) and kept an eye out for her whenever I saw a redhead there.

Some time later my relationship with Anna was on the rocks. I was looking to make new friends on a site called College Club and saw a profile that spoke to me. Like me, she only had the "friend" option checked. I figured it was safe and wrote her an email. Looking back, it was insanely personal for someone that I'd just met. That wasn't my style, but it seemed right with her. It took her a couple of days to respond to the first email. We shot back emails back and forth at the rate of four or so a piece per day. It turned out that an acquaintance of mine was her best friend and that she was the girl in the Juri costume at Akon and that we were born an hour apart.

It also turned out that we both had the "friend" option checked because we were both in relationships. It also also turned out that we were both in relationships we were making preparations to get out of.

When we were both finally single we made plans to go to a party that her step-mother was throwing. At the last minute I cancelled. It didn't matter because we were going to see each other the next day. Except that night an ex-boyfriend named Michael showed up and everything changed. I didn't hear from her for a couple of days. When I did, everything was different. I could read the writing on the wall but she was denying that it was there. I was on winter break from school and the days turned into centuries as I watched the phone never ring and the emailbox remain empty.

Things eventually died out as she decided that she was forever meant to be with Michael. I could see that she was making a tremendous mistake. No only in passing up someone as wonderful as me, but I knew what Michael was going to do. She denied it, but she'd also denied that Michael was going to be her choice. I was right and she was wrong both times. Michael sent her into a whirlwind of emotional turmoil. We later reconciled.

As things had happened with Audrey and Michael, they would also be with Audrey and me. From the outside looking in, I could see what was going to happen. In fact, I actually told people that was most likely what was going to happen again. Audrey again assured me that it wasn't and for a while it looked like she was right. Despite the arguments, horrible yelling and worse silence, things were improving. But there were three sides to her. There was the Audrey that would show up late, the Audrey that couldn't make it but would call, and the Audrey that never called and never showed up. Each seemed to possess her a third of the time. The third Audrey made it impossible for me to enjoy the time with the first one.

Things had grown stagnant (again). When I confronted her about it, she told me that she wasn't going anywhere. It was true enough because there was nowhere for her to go. She and I had made plans to get together on the weekend of 9/14/01, but at the last minute she decided she was going to go visit relatives instead. I made plans for Austin. One day before her scheduled departure, terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Her trip was cancelled. I decided that I wasn't going to cancel my trip to Austin and left anyway.

Michael's predecessor in her life, a boy named Vince, called her while I was gone. For some reason, a terrorist act involving the deaths of thousands made him think of her. They got together that weekend and when I got back from Austin, everything had changed again. This time I just didn't know it. She was seeing both of us and her previously improving attendence record was starting to dip again. When she failed to show up on a date that we'd planned over a month in advance, and when she failed to call, I had finally reached my limit.

She convinced me to give it one last chance. I agreed to, but it was going to be different. Her attendence record improved, but it was already not enough. Maybe I was already starting to figure out what was going on with Vince, but mostly I had raised my expectations higher than she was planning to deliver. Then out of nowhere I started really thinking about the Vince situation. The thought had occured to me that I hadn't even asked her if anything was going on.

So I did and she told me that while nothing had happened, she was trying to figure out what she wanted. That was the last last last last straw. I'd threatened to leave before, but she'd always fought to keep me. She tried to calm things down but I was finally unwavering. We had a showdown in the Target parking lot on the northside. The fight lasted for six hours. It was the longest amount of uninterrupted alone time we'd ever had together.

She and Vince promptly got together afterwards. While Vince was thankfully no Michael, things didn't work out. There were real problems about six months in, but she held it together for another six months. She and I did not see each other much during this period. We touched base again when she and Vince were in their final days. I was going through some issues of my own at the time. Shortly before or after that, she ended up getting together with Ed, a friend of mine and her best friend since high school. They've been together since.

I'm pretty excited about the Astros signing Roger Clemens. New York fans, as has been noted elsewhere, are crying bloody murder.

In all honesty, I can understand New Yorkers' frustration. Clemens did make a really big show out of retiring as a Yankee. But isn't it pretty obvious that he did, actually, plan to retire? With a paltry $5m contract (most of it deferred until 2006), it's obviously not about the money. On top of that, the Astros really bent over backwards to work with him:

Clemens was also given permission to leave the team to watch his sons participate in their baseball games. Clemens stressed that he would not miss much time, but that one of the reasons he decided to retire was to have the opportunity to see more of his sons and be a bigger part of their lives.

"I'm going to blink, and that time in their lives is going to be gone," he said.

Does anyone think for a New York minute that the George Steinbrenner's Yankees would accept this arrangement?

Kudos to McLane for finding what Clemens wanted more than money and giving it to him.

A while back I wrote about the fight that broke out between my own beloved UH (University of Houston) and the other UH (University of Hawaii). One thing I didn't comment on was Hawaii's noticeable mascot, Vili. The cameras loved Vili, a 300-pound native dressed as a warrior, because he's so animated and enthusiastic. Some argue too enthusiastic:

The University of Hawaii's sports opponents and even school officials think the university's Polynesian warrior mascot has gotten too, well, warlike.

Vili the Warrior, played by Vili Fehoko, is being criticized for overly boisterous antics including taunting opposing players and throwing a bracelet at a cheerleader.

In a November football game against the University of Alabama, the 6-foot-tall, 290-pound Vili tossed and made a wrestling-style jump on the school's mascot, an elephant called Big Al played by a student weighing a not-so-big 165 pounds.

"I think Vili took it too far," said Debbie Greenwell, coordinator of Alabama's cheerleading squad. "He really could have hurt our mascot."

[...]

But Vili's antics have university officials saying they may change the mascot program. He most recently was criticized after the Warriors' triple-overtime victory over the University of Houston in the Dec. 25 Hawaii Bowl, which ended in on-field brawl marked by Vili's sideline taunting.

"We hear our fans loud and clear," said Tom Sadler, associate athletics director at the university. "We don't condone that type of behavior. We're going to address it."

PatioPundit - source of the article - asks if the PC police have no shame.. I'm not sure what PC has to do with it. I'd imagine liability insurance is a bigger factor. Eric Cerlain suggests that Alabama fans wouldn't be complaining if they hadn't lost.

In that vein, if I were to say that Vili were out of line it could easily be considered sour grapes. Truth be told, I found Vili to be entertaining during the game even as he was taking swipes at the Coogs. But when the fight broke out I did (and he was in the middle of it) I wondered if perhaps Hawaii ought to rein him in. Hawaii has had two incidents in three years and both Houston and Cinicinnati boosters point to Vili as being part of an obnoxious fan culture that pushes other teams a bit too far.

Then again, neutering his antics reminds me of the Astro's decision to trip down its mascot, Orbit. It would make him seem like a hollow shell of himself.

Vili reminds me a bit of another Astro's mascot, or a former one. Astro Bob I think his name was? He was a war vet on disability (if I recall) that went to every Astros home game dressed in a gaudy outfit including clown hair and a Stros uniform. He would stand out in center field and act kinda clownish. He started off buying his own tickets, but eventually players would start leaving tickets for him. Unfortunately, Drayton McLane put the kabosh on that. Vili started out as a crazed fan and instead of putting the kabosh on him, they hired him.

Call me a sentimental when it comes to sports fanatics hitting the big time, but that's cool.

I kinda hope they can figure out some way to keep him.

I am looking to include the a syndicated other site on this one. I've read all about how to syndicate a site into a file, but I can't seem to find anything on how to actually put a syndication on a site.

Can anyone point me the way?

I have decided what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be the boss! For the last two days I have been the senior personnel on third shift. The other two guys are newer so I've been showing them the roaps. The third shift supervisor has had the days off. I've been in charge of training the newer guys, making sure all the checklists get done. Making sure they're doing things right and handling emergencies. I actually came away from work today with a great sense of accomplishment. On top of that, because we're all new we've been working together very well (with me at the helm, natch).

Despite my carping, I'm not having nearly as much trouble staying awake anymore, either. Despite getting five hours of sleep or less the last couple of days I've not been very tired.

I like my coworkers, I like calling the shots, I even like the schedule.

I switch to second shift in two weeks. Goodbye Julio, goodbye William, goodbye seniority, goodbye schedule...

"Now you have reached a point in your life when you realize that you were not meant for youth, that you were in fact always a little older than everyone else and merely waiting for your age to catch up to you, so that you might live partly through memory, as you were meant to," -Rachel Cohen.

[via Unbillable Hours]

I would rather...

1. Write the greatest novel ever (though if it were 100 rather than 1,000 I'd reconsider)
2. Speak with God.
3. I'll take the tickets. Until I have kids, then I'll take the attention.
4. Mathematician.
5. Ninja master.

Reading this clip from Rebecca Blood reminds me how often it seems that liberals and conservatives really live in two different worlds:

Let me go on record as saying that my guess in that thread is wrong: upon reflection, I think that the time is ripe for Universal Healthcare: this issue will finally have the power to draw support from a broad enough base of constituencies to fuel a new progressive movement. Individuals, business owners and corporations, hospitals--nearly everyone--will benefit from a nationalized health care system. Basically everyone but the pharamaceutical companies and health insurance agencies themselves. That we don't already have one is a tribute to their enormous political power: only a coalition of everyone else will have the political clout to overcome their interest in keeping this broken system.

I'm not seeing this. If I did, I'd be worried. I'm prone to worry, but I'm not worried.

It's not difficult to empathize with the doctors in this article. If I were to become a doctor, my line of reasoning would likely be very similar to theirs.

Fortunately for the residents of some small town where she will eventually work, Dr. Eel's reasoning was admirably different.

[via Duffwire]

There was a man in a wheelchair at the bottom of an down-bound escalator. Most took great pains to get around him while others gave him cold looks. "I can't move!" he exclaimed. "It's too difficult! I can't move!"

A young man going down the escalator swung himself across by placing one hand on the escalator rail and another on the handlebar on the back of the wheelchair.

The man in the wheelchair cried, stood up, and ran away, screaming, "Don't use me!"

The eternal struggle between RAW and the Sandman continues like never before. When last we joined our hero, he was armed with a makeshift mask to block out the evil Dr. Light and his sunrays that have kept RAW week at night when the Sandman is at his most powerful. The Sandman responded in kind by recruiting Chronos to his nefarious cause. Chronos used his powers over time in order to elongate the hours that RAW is at his weakest. In addition to that, he set the clock in Gattaca's R&D division 1 hour ahead, so that every time RAW sees it he thinks that more time has past than actually has, leaving him to devestating disappointment and discouragement over and over again during the course of Sandman's frontal assaults.

But RAW has allies of his own! His intermittant ally Ephedra has come to his aid, giving him strength to perservere throughout the night by fighting the Sandman singlehandedly. Ephedra proved to be a dubius ally when he betrayed RAW and teamed up with Dr. Light to keep RAW awake during the day and weak at night. The Sandman then recruited RAW's own contacts, who laid assault on RAW's eyes until they had to be taken out.

RAW was saddened by the sacrifice, but has fought on valliantly! With the aid of Big K and his powerful caffiene gun, he fought off the Sandman valliantly. Together, Big K and RAW have formed an insurmountable alliance that leaves the Sandman and his own allies in frustrated defeat.

But the Sandman does not give up easily. If he cannot win this way, he will assuredly find another. He visits RAW's boss, Mr. Smith, late at night.

"Can't sleep. Somehow, somewhere there is dirt. I cannot sleep if dirt exists anywhere!!" Mr. Smith exclaims.

"I will aid you, Mr. Smith. I only ask one favor..." the Sandman tells him.

"Can't sleep. Can't sleep. Can't sleep. Can't sleep..."

"I will allow you to sleep if you grant me one favor. Will you do it?"

"Anything to sleep..."

[to be continued]

Now I can have the Big K vending machine I always wanted!!

Seriously, with a bit (or a lot) of fine-tuning this could be a quite useful innovation. Particularly when it comes to limiting children's soda in-take. I've already decided, more or less, that I plan to live in a diet household. But should I change my mind or marry someone who strongly objects to that idea, a machine like this could control how many cokes a kid has a day.

Or just as importantly, it could monitor how many cokes *I* have in a day.

Among my favorite bands is Counting Crows. They're mostly known for their earlier hits such as "Mr. Jones" and "Round Here," though they've been consistently putting out CDs since. I never cared much for Mr. Jones though Round Here I liked and Long December has one of the greatest quotable quotes on the planet. I really got into the band a couple years ago when I went on a new music spree and found that I liked a whole lot of their material. It's a difficult thing to tell from a band's radio releases, which are rarely indicative of the best and worst a band have to offer.

The best thing about the Crows is, in fact, all the hidden treasures. I say "hidden" but I just mean that I hear them and they don't mean anything to me and then *WHAM* one day I listen - really listen - to the song and it touches me in a deep way. The depth in Adam Duritz's lyrics is consistently amazing to me. It's rarely a matter as to whether or not they're good or bad as whether or not I experience them.

Today I was listening to their VH1 Storytellers CD and heard "Have You Seen Me Lately?" and, for the first time, experienced it.

An interesting article from BBC news about what we percieve as being luck.

Unsurprisingly, it's not so much luck as attitude. I've been slipping in recent years myself. Once upon a time I was a more exuberant person than I am now and it was pretty successful. The people you're the best off knowing are attracted to smiles. People who view a glass as being half full, in the end, actually get more milk.

It's interesting that there remains a chic with depression. I'm not talking about the serious mental disease, but more the aura of being depressed. Sadness is often confused with depth. For certain people this is effective. I know a number of people who attract people with an effective wistful sigh. However, I find the people they attract to often be less healthy overall and the relationships they bring are rarely fruitful by any reasonable measure. That's from a friendship/relationship standpoint. From a professional one, there is no benefit at all.

Perhaps that should have been my New Years Resolution. I don't particularly carry an aura of darkness or anything, but I could probably manage to paint a smile on my face more often.

That's not particularly what the article is about, but it's what it made me think of.

[via Duffwire]

Yahoo News has a really interesting article on urban sexual habits. No big surprises for me, but it reaffirms a number of beliefs that I've already had. I'll avoid getting on my soapbox for the moment and limit the discussion to premarital cohabitation:

The survey uncovered the importance of an emotion neglected by previous researchers: jealousy.

"The rise in cohabitation has increased domestic violence because people who cohabit are much more likely to experience jealousy," Laumann said.

"Because of the lack of commitment in a `cohab,' people enter it being a lot more mistrustful."

The researchers found that adultery breaks up Chicago area marriages at a rate of about 4 percent a year. However, when the adultery occurs among people who are living together but unmarried, the defection rate jumps to 15 to 20 percent.

"That means fighting increases, and with it the likelihood of physical violence," Laumann said. "These are fragile relationships, and domestic violence because of sexual jealousy is a problem in all the communities we studied."

I'm not sure how much jealousy is a factor, but I do think that the commitment-noncommitment aspect of it is pretty central to premarital cohabitation, in general, doesn't work.

I'm no 100% against it as there are certain circumstances where it is appropriate. But the efforts to streamline it into part of the "process" between dating and marriage are, on the whole, putting up a stumbling block for themselves to trip over. It's a half-measure that brings neither the security of marriage nor the freedom of living independently. From a practical standpoint, pre-marital cohabitation makes perfect sense. At the end of the day, though, we are not practical creatures.

Of course, I may eat these words some day :).

I watched the Rams-Panthers game last night and have come to the conclusion that I enjoy professional overtime a lot more than college overtime. As college games have gone in to overtime I find myself groaning. I know it's a more fair system, but I have a hard time getting too much enjoyment watching each team get the ball just out of the red zone back and forth waiting for one team or the other to screw up a gimme. What's so exciting about watching and waiting for teams to screw up?

Some of Howard Dean's opponents are atwitter about some unearthed footage of Dean on (and American) roundtable program about U.S. politics. He was on the show from 1996-2002, which leaves Dean a pretty long rope of film with which to hang himself.

Among other things, he said that he believed that then-Governor Bush is a moderate at heart and, perhaps more regrettably, that the Iowa caucus system is enormously stupid:

“If you look at the caucuses system, they are dominated by the special interests in both parties,” he said. “[And] the special interests don't represent the centrist tendencies of the American people. They represent the extremes. And then you get a president who is beholden to either one extreme or the other, and where the average person is in the middle.”

He added, “Here's what happens: Say I'm a guy who's got to work for a living, and I've got kids and so forth. On a Saturday, is it easy for me to go cast a ballot and spend 15 minutes doing it, or do I have to sit in a caucus for eight hours? … I can’t stand there and listen to everyone else’s opinion for eight hours about how to fix the world.”

Dean's opponents are laughing at the irony, and why not? Dean is presently spending a lot of time in Iowa trying to win the caucus that he once denounced.

But seriously, six years of footage and that's all you got?!

Oh, there's more. Dean demonstrated having a bit of a temper. He is something of a would-be intellectual who has a wide array of interests. He likes long walks along the beach and yadda yadda...

Six years of footage and that's all you got?!

On the comment about the President, it's not particularly difficult to say that Bush has governed to the right of where many expected him to. It's not an argument that I particularly agree with, but it's a popular idea in Democratic circles and, last I checked, Dr. Dean is in fact a Democrat.

On the Iowa caucuses, Dean was absolutely right. Did he flip-flop? Sure, but let's get real here. Considering the flip-flops that presidential candidates seem to do regarding Iowa usually pertaining to ethanol subsidies (Bill Bradley being a classic example) a change of heart over a procedural issue is considerably less serious than one over a substantive issue. And, let's be honest here, Dean needs to do well in Iowa in order to become president. He's not going to get there by calling the process stupid. He can't actually become president and make a real difference if he doesn't get elected. If you were Howard Dean and you thought that the Iowa caucus system was stupid, would you let that get in the way of your plans for health care and foreign policy?

As for Dean's personality flaws - real and percieved - I am unconvinced that this really unearths things that people didn't already know. He is either "passionate" or "bitter" depending on your political dispositions. He speaks first and thinks later from time to time. Truth be told, irrespective of his politics, I don't think I would particularly mind a president with such a demeanor. He's a lefty Donald Rumsfeld.

On top of that, I am actually somewhat impressed how little his views have abruptly changed in the name of presidential politics. Some of them seem to have evolved (NAFTA for instance) and others he has remained constant on (such as support of affirmative action). I don't particularly agree with Dean on these issues, but I'll give him credit for coming by them pretty honestly and I'll even say that I'm beginning to wonder if the attacks on Dean's flip-flopping are a bit unfair.

I do not particularly care for Howard Dean, to say the least. He holds people that have the views that I do in very little regard and frankly I believe that he is more interested in being liked in Paris, France than he is in Paris, Texas.

There are the important issues on the table than what Dean thinks of Iowa's intraparty candidate selection process. Let's keep our eyes on the ball, here.

Say, what are his views on ethanol subsidies?

I don't buy it, but the 45-question answer sure beats the 22 answer one, which was Hitler.



Never seen it, strangely enough...

[via Che Courreges]

BestPlaces ranking researcher has compiled a list and the most and least stressful places to live. Tacoma, Washington, of all places, ranks as the most stressful. The others are more predictable.

Houston is not mentioned on the list, though Daniel's former town of Miami and Heidi's New Orleans are both near the top of the list.

High violent crime put Miami second on the list of most stressful cities, in addition to high property crime, long commutes, high unemployment and a high divorce rate.

The third most stressful U.S. city was New Orleans, despite being known as the "Big Easy," followed by Las Vegas, which had the highest suicide and divorce rates in the study, and New York, which boasted the longest commute times.

No Idaho "cities" were mentioned.

I did get a kick out of the articles description of American attitude being "Thank God It's Monday."

I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that it's not a phrase I have ever uttered.

Except, of course, when I was unemployed.

Here's some cool stuff on the Internet I would like to own some day:

Office Space movie: I meant to purchase this after I lost my last job, but I suddenly became a lot thriftier. So I rented it and kept it so long I spent $20 renting a movie it would have cost me $15 to buy.

Daria: Is It Fall Yet? and Daria: Is It College Yet? I love that show.

The Shield: Season One on DVD. I've caught enough episodes to know that it's a show that I'd like to see through. Although I might tire of the whiplash directing after a couple episodes, it's a great guy's guy's soap opera!

Wig in a Box CD. Wig in a Box is a tribute album to the soundtrack of Hedwig & The Angry Inch, a movie that I very greatly enjoy. It's even got They Might Be Giants, Frank Black, and Ben Folds on it!

"Houston University" mini helmet. I got a Longhorn one for Dad for Christmas and thought it was pretty cool. Not sure why they call it Houston University, but I suppose they'll just have to sleep at night knowing they made the error. If they can.

This awesome SQL Query shirt or the classic 127.0.0.1 shirt from Thinkgeek.com. I like geeky stuff sometimes. Sue me!

I've wanted this Cowboy Bebop wall scroll (and this one)for a while. I'm not the anime fan I used to be, but I still really ought to have something to reflect my appreciation for the Cowboy Bebop series, which is among my favorites.

This Key the Metal Idol wall scroll is also really cool. Key remains the most emotionally resonant anime I have ever seen.

The weather around here has been weird(er than usual). I haven't liked it too much. It went from being blissfully cold to being extremely... stale. I don't know. It like tried to hide the staleness by raining, but the rain couldn't mask the fact that the temp went up 10 degrees. Last night at around 2am it got up to nearly 60.

Right now it's purportedly 48 at 10am.

I don't get it.

Tonight will be my first Mike McClure show!! I've seen him with Great Divide and I've seen him open for other acts, but it will be my first full show. I can't wait!

Good night.

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Tug McGraw has died. He'd been ill for some time so it wasn't unexpected.

I was really too young to follow McGraw's career too closely. However, Micro League Baseball for the Apple IIe had the 1980 Phillies, which was the team I managed most of the time. A number of my favorite players came from the 1980 Phillies, including catcher Bob Boone (quoted in the article).

McGraw will also be known as the largely absent father of country music artist Tim McGraw. Since he's passed on, I suppose I can forgive Tug's responsibility for making Tim a household name. More seriously, the story of Tug and Tim is actually a rather touching one.

I haven't read The Onion in ages...

and I don't really miss it much.

At all.

This is more accurate for "Hurricane" Audrey Elciem, probably (who shares my birthday), but given recent events with Eel, it does seem a bit appropriate.

I am The Wheel of Fortune The Wheel of Fortune represents unexpected encounters and twists of fate. You can't predict surprises; you can only be aware when one is circling around. Indeed, Card 10 often suggests wheel-like actions - changes in direction, repeating cycles and rapid movement. When the energy of the Wheel arrives, you will feel life speed up. You are caught in a cyclone that may deposit you anywhere. "Round and round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows." For a full description of your card and other goodies, please visit LearnTarot.com

What tarot card are you? Enter your birthdate. Month: Day: Year:

Mr. Smith, my boss at Gattaca, has an ad out in Yahoo Personals. Smith doesn't know that everyone who has ever worked in the OCD knows this, but we all do. Unlike many of my coworkers, I don't have a problem with online personals. I sorta met Audrey though them (it was originally just a friendly email and it turned out that we ran in close circles) and we almost had something fantastic before it turned in to what it was. That's about as close as I've gotten, though I do know others that have had more luck.

So I finally tracked down Smith's online personal and I'm pretty disappointed. It's actually not all that bad. The picture is atrocious, but the ad itself actually demonstrates a tad of self-depricating wit:

I am sometimes optimistic, sometimes pessimistic, but always realistic and practical. I am also frugal ("waste not, want not"). I would sooner drive a small economy car than a gas-guzzling SUV, and I avoid throwing away anything that can be recycled. I am a bit of a perfectionist. My favorite quote is, "We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails." Hopefully all this tells you something about my values. (Although you wouldn't know it from reading this profile, I really do have a sense of humor/wit/silliness - seriously!) (Oh, and I floss daily.)

It actually may be the most honest and straightforward online personal I've ever seen.

Darnit.

If you hate yourself, you can prove it by reading this looooooooooooooong comment thread, dating back to April 3rd!

I actually followed the first couple dozen messages way back when, but it got old (and derisive) pretty quick. I cannot believe that it's still going on.

I guess I know what I'm getting Adam for his next birthday.

As I've stated before, I'm against a college playoff system for I-A football. That said, the entire issue of what a college playoff should be like is a logistical challenge that I find intriguing. How do you pick between 117 teams (and soon to be more or less) and fit them into a tournament that isn't a five-week playoff? How do you balance the dominace of major conferences without making an established two-tier system that good schools in the second tier cannot break out of?

The options are a 4, 8, 10, 16, 32 and 64 game playoffs along with a conference restructuring option.

Four game playoff: Choose the top four teams, seed them and let them play.
Advantages:

Every game still counts. A team with more than one loss (or even a team with a single loss) would not be guaranteed a berth so a team could not coast into the system.

No undefeated team would be left out and teams with two losses would rarely be let in.

Bowl games would not become irrelevent and therefore excluded teams (non-BCS teams and schools with a hard luck season such as Kansas State) would get a reward.

Disadvantages:

The conference question would become even more poignant. In a system that took the entire 2003 season into account, it would be Oklahoma, Southern Cal, Lousiana State, and Michigan. However, others would argue that a team that doesn't win the conference should not be allowed in and the 12-1 Sooners would be passed over for the 10-2 Miami Hurricanes, Florida State Seminoles, or Ohio State Buckeyes. Some wouldn't have a problem with this, but I would.

Even if the dominant teams all won their conference, you'd still have competing 10-1 or 9-2 seasons and controversy for a long time.

A lot of teams that feel that they should be allowed in to the playoff will be jilted despite having the same record as other teams that were let in. The controversy would not go away.

Undefeated non-BCS teams would never get a shot at the title no matter how well they play.

Eight team playoff: Take the current BCS teams and seed them for a playoff.
Advantages:

Every BCS team with one or two losses would likely be included.

Bowl games still possible and of at least some importance.

No conference question. All of the conference winners would likely be included along with a couple non-conference winners (or Notre Dame).
Disadvantages:

An undefeated team could coast into the playoffs despite losing their last two games. Even an 11-2 Oklahoma would probably have made it this year.

The non-BCS problem would not go away. In fact, with bowl games losing prominance they'd be more jilted than ever as no one watches the bowl games in favor of the playoffs. The difference between the Liberty and Fiesta Bowls is not as big as the difference between a marginalized bowl game and a hallowed national playoff.

Ten team playoff: Take ten conference winners and make non-BCS conferences play for the wildcard.
Advantages:

Non-BCS teams would get a chance but not on equal footing with the BCS teams.

Non-conference games would become irrelevent to the post-season therefore teams can experiment more and play games against tougher opponents.

Would probably strike a good balance between BCS and non-BCS conferences, which would help non-BCS schools recruit because they can be in the playoffs while still giving preference to the superior BCS schools.

Completely objective.

Bowls still carry star teams as strong #2 teams in conferences can face off against each other.

Disadvantages:

Many would argue that a second place SEC team is more worthy than a first place non-BCS team. Hard to argue with that.

Non-conference games would become irrelevent and therefore teams can coast.

Ranking, one of the more interest aspects of college football, would become irrelevent.

With the latest reallignment, the Big East is now closer in quality to the Mountain West Conference than the next weakest BCS conference, but they would be given an unfair competitive advantage.

Once a team wins their conference, they have nothing to play for (strategically)

Sixteen team playoff: Take conference winners, top ranked non-winners, and at least one non-BCS school.
Advantages:

An undefeated non-BCS school would make it to the playoffs.

If a team has an outstanding season, they will be included.

Disadvantages:

In the bell curve of records, the more losses that are allowed in the playoffs the more teams that will have that number of losses. Therefore it becomes more controversial.

Adds four weeks to the season.

Bowls become seriously marginalized and a consolation prize for a lot of teams that don't want to be there and won't play as hard.

Thirty-two team playoff: Take everybody!
Advantages:

Everybody plays!

Disadvantages:

Bowl? What's a "Bowl"?

Four losses? No problem!

Sixty-four team playoff: Take everybody! And their sister!
Advantages:
Disadvantages:

Regular season? We don't need no stinkin' regular season (that matters).

Conference Restructuring Option:
Take all 117 teams and divide them into 8-team districts. They spend the regular season playing each other round-robin. At the end of which they embark in a 16-team playoff.
Advantages:

As fair as can be humanly imagined.

Uncontroversial national champion.

Disadvantages:

*YAWN*

College football won't be on TV much until the playoffs.

Hmmm, well, I don't like any of these plans. If I had to choose I'd go with the 4-team just to keep the playoffs as minimal as possible. Absent that I'd probably just assume plunge forward with a 10-team system since an 8-team is just asking for the kind of controversy that the BCS provides (insofar as who is in and who is out, not the championship obviously) and a 16-team playoff is just too many teams to make the regular season as exciting as it is now.

[Note: This was written before the results of the BCS games]

The OU-LSU-USC triumvirate this year has created a lot of headaches for the BCS bowls and conferences. What would have been accepted contest between LSU and OU was thrown into whack when OU lost their conference playoff and, according to many people, their right to contend for the national title.

The harshest critics are, unsurprisingly, those that are against the BCS's existence and moreso those that advocate some sort of playoff system. In fact, I don't know of a single former BCS advocate whose mind has been changed by all this. In fact, many of the people complaining the loudest are silently smiling because this "proves" how worthless the BCS is.

Perhaps it does demonstrate a flawed system, perhaps not. If USC (#3 BCS #1 polls) beats up on #4 Michigan and if LSU defeats Oklahoma, BCS advocates will be at pains to argue that their system produced the right game. But let's put aside the results of the bowl games for a minute because even critics of the ultimate result, such as Jerald Solomon, have said that they believe Oklahoma to be the best in the country even though they believe that shouldn't be relevent to being ranked #1 or getting a shot in the title.

In a playoff system that would be correct. If an NFL team goes 16-0 throughout the season and then lose the first round of the playoff, they won't play or win in the Superbowl. I consider that to be an advantage of the college football structure (teams are judged on their performance in all of their games, not select ones), but others honestly disagree. But before I continue, understand that my primary goal is to make every game as important as possible. If a playoff system would do that, then I would advocate one.

In the meantime, let's take a look at the BCS itself and try to figure out what (if anything) went wrong and what the advantages and disadvantages are to the current options and the current system those options would replace.

Current System: National championship game is chosen by a computer formula. The formula weighs the games irrespective of when it is played. It counts games against opponenets with better records (and opponents with opponents with better records). It makes little or no distinctions between ranked and unranked and BCS and non-BCS schools.
Current System Advantages:

Teams open the season knowing that early games matter. There are precious few second chances in college football, which I consider to be a plus.

By keeping who plays who when irrelevent, it keeps the Thanksgiving games alive. If Texas were to be particularly rewarded or hurt by playing Texas A&M, that game would possibly be changed (as it was when A&M was TV-banned). The same goes for Ole Miss and Mississippi State and a host of other rivalries.

Since margin of victory is not taken into account, it discourages teams from running up the score.

Disadvantages:

The system encourages lopsided non-conference games to be scheduled. Texas was effectively punished for scheduling Arkansas when they could have been racking up a 92-0 game against SMU and feeling some BCS love. The system makes easy wins more valuable than hard fought (and exciting) games.

Since a win is a win and a loss is a loss, when Ohio State skims by winning by three points a game, it counts just as much as Oklahoma and USC when they were winning by several touchdown margins.

Conference titles are functionally meaningless. Oklahoma gets a shot at the national title this year and Nebraska did a couple years ago when they didn't even play in the conference game.

Current System Victors: OU and LSU

So, what changes should be made to the system. Here are some possibilities:

Proposition: Teams should be required to win their conference to be considered for the national championships.
Advantages:

Conference championship games would be more important.

Some will view the system with more legitimacy by not having a national champion that wasn't at least a conference champion.

Disadvantages:

It creates an uneven atmosphere between those conferences where 11-0 teams have to prove themselves against 8-3 conference rivals whereas a different 11-0 team would not.Right now there is about an even trade-off on getting a leg up or leg down on the opposition (If OU already had a loss, they would have been thrown out, LSU would probably not have passed USC without the extra game). Unqualified disqualification would throw that balance off.

It rewards teams in particularly weak conferences, such as the post-Miami Big East (if they remain a BCS conference).

Winners: LSU and USC

Proposition: Margin of victory should be a factor in the BCS calculations.
Advantages:

Whether a team dominates its opposition or slides by will become more of a factor. If a team like Ohio State barely wins game after game, it shouldn't count as much as when Oklahoma crushed teams weak in and weak out.

Disadvantages:

It encourages teams to run up the score.

It creates confusing situations such as an fumble by Kansas against Notre Dame knocking Virginia Tech out of the playoffs.

Winners: OU and USC

Proposition: Wins that occur later in the season should carry more weight.
Advantages:

Games that latter part of the season will have more of a playoff feel to it and are more exciting.

Could lead teams to schedule tougher out-of-conference games earlier in the season because they wouldn't be as penalized.

Disadvantages:

Could lead teams to schedule out-of-conference games later in the season so that they come out looking good.

Leads to a situation where the Texas Longhorns (who won their last six) are undeservedly ranked ahead of the Oklahoma Sooners (who clobbered Texas during the season).

Teams that face a tougher last few games are penalized. Particularly those that play in a conference playoffs. Teams in conferences without a playoff with easy schedules are unduly rewarded.

Winners: USC and LSU

Proposition: Polls should be weighted equally with the BCS numbers.
Advantages:

Human factors are considered. Whether a team looked particularly good or bad is more reflected in their standings. Lucky wins don't count as much as hard-fought ones.

Polls are more popular with the public than are mathematical formulas.

Disadvantages:

Human rating is entirely subjective.

Later games are more important, though how much more important are subjective at best and can be arbitrary at worst.

Popularity can win out over achievement. What happens off the field can play an factor when judging game performance. A team that gets good press (by being in a large media center, for instance) has an unfair leg-up on the competition.

Winners: USC and LSU

By a 3-1 margin, these changes would have knocked OU out of national contention. I don't have a problem with a system that doesn't allow the Sooners to play provided that the rules are set before the season begins and that they are the most fair set of rules that can be made. Of course, "fair" is a subjective term and while Daniel may argue that games later in the season should count more, I ultimately don't believe that to be the case. Especially not from a statistical standpoint.

I'd be open to the last option (increasing worth of polls) and making the BCS numbers only be a tie-breaker. The general consensus is that the game should be fought between LSU and USC and whether that consensus is right or wrong, it should probably be the start of any conversation for a national championship that does not include a playoff system.

The most I'm conflicted on is conference championships. I want the conference championship to actually mean something, I like conference championship games, and I want as many games as possible during the season to matter. These are, unfortunately, mutually exclusive. If a previously undefeated team is completely knocked out of championship contention for losing that one game regardless of how well the other teams played, it could create a situation where a team with two losses gets a shot whereas a team with one loss does not. Take the championship game out of the equation and you have a situation where if the Longhorns had gone 11-1 this year with only a loss to a top three team are tossed aside in favor of an 9-3 team that won its games more strategically (in a weaker division).

In the end, I don't believe that a conference championship ought to be required for the national championship game but ought to be a pass into a BCS game. If Texas had beaten Arkansas and this meant that they were still shut out of the BCS, so be it. This strikes a good compromise between the importance of winning a conference without it carrying the weight of two or three games.

So those are my thoughts on the BCS formula.

Defenders of the entertainment industry argue that the "reasonable" copy protections employed shouldn't bother those of us that aren't trying to do anything illegal. Leaving aside CDs that only play in some CD players, I have a more immediate bone to pick.

I have a DVD player that is no longer working. I wouldn't mind so much if it only required going out to spend $100 and replacing it, but I can't. Why? Because this was a special DVD player. There is this filter called Macrovision that keeps DVDs from being played through a VCR. It wants to prevent recording. That's fair enough. Except that it doesn't just distort when the VCR is recording but whenever it goes through a VCR.

Well, my television does not have an RCA jack. That means that to get it in to the television, it *has* to go through a VCR. The DVD player in particular that I had was Macrovision-disabled. I paid extra for it, but it's the only way I've been able to view DVDs that I have legally purchased without upgrading my television set or going through the trouble of having a switch.

If anyone wants to know why people who don't have interest in large pirating scams don't like the entertainment industry's crackdowns and have contempt for the industry as a whole, this provides one good example.

Anyone that has any information on how I can get ahold of another Macrovision-disabled DVD player, please email me at parialex&yahoo,com.

" The issue [of democratization of the Middle East] has always been tricky and difficult to put into any form of overarching philosophy lest one desire to go to war with a far larger portion of the world than we're presently engaged with." -Greg Wythe

I can't tell you how many times I've heard this fallacy:

I found out that if I leave five minutes later, I literally get there earlier!

Now, it's quite possible to leave for somewhere later and arrive there earlier. For instance, you might drive faster or more aggressively. Possibly when you're running late you take a different route for one reason or another (percieved there's less traffic during pique hours whereas the other way is quicker without traffic hours).

However, barring externalities such as that, it is impossible to leave someplace later and arrive earlier!

You can leave later and spend less time driving, but barring externalities, you will still arrive later if only by a single car length.

Let's remove the externalities and investigate the situation, shall we? Two cars leave the same place to arrive at the same place. One leaves at the tail end of rush hour and the other avoids it entirely. If the first car is literally the last car in the traffic and the second car literally has no traffic with which to deal (which is rarely the case, by-and-by, but let's pretend). Unless the second car is driving faster or taking an alternate route, the second car will end up right behind the first car. This is not rocket science here.

If the second car is running later and takes a different route that gets them there faster, it is the route that is saving them time, not their belated departure. If the second car drives more aggressively, it is the aggressive driving, not the timing that gets them there quicker.

So if you're going to tack the word "literally" onto the statement, make sure that it is at least feasible.

There, I have that off my chest now.