What did Darrin Stephens, the husband on the TV show "Bewitched," do for a living? Did they ever say?

As a general rule in the world according to RAW, it's not a good thing if you can be identified by the way that you walk. A peculiar walk is easily parodied and is low hanging fruit for anyone who desires to make some grander point about what a goober you are.

If you're way uptight, you can have a militaryish walk. If you're morbidly obese, you waddle. If you treat something as simple as moving from Point A to Point B as some sort of grand presentation of yourself... it doesn't come across as you would like. Not to me, although my opinion counts for little in terms of coolness or respectability.

Of course, in some dicta of coolness, there is such a thing as a "cool" walk. This has been true over the decades, though as with all fashions it's changed over the years. The was the walk of The Fonz from Happy Days, the my-future-is-so-bright-I-gotta-wear-shades walk of the 80's, the macho gangsta playa walk of the 90's, and so on.

But my appreciation of someone immediately declines if they try to demonstrate their hepness with poor posture and an inability to perform to the normal ways of walking.

Over the weekend I pulled a hamstring or something. Instead of an injured limp (which is uncool but understandable), I have this odd combination of a stiff walk, a presentation walk, and a waddle. It's not only painful, but painfully gooberish.

I've become the strange walker type that I ordinarily reserve for ridicule.

Could be worse, though, as at least it doesn't somehow incorporate the macho gangsta playa walk.

Thank heavens for small favors.

First, if you want to avoid a wand search, it's highly recommended that you take out any foil that may exist in your pockets, such as gum wrapper.

Second, if you want to avoid a really intrusive search, it's recommended that you don't (a) have anything in your pockets to get pulled aside and (b) do not have a button on the fly of your boxers big enough to alert the wand.

Tagged by Adrianne.

Random Ten
I - "Around the Sun" by REM. I've been listening to this CD for about a week or so. It's billed "political" and REM is somewhere to the left of Nader, but the songs are easily transferrable to non-political points. If this CD was attempted to convert me, it failed. If it was supposed to entertain me, it has definitely succeeded.

II - "Wildflowers" by Tom Petty. Eel and I had a discussion about this CD yesterday. I told here there were two songs I didn't care for on the CD and she guessed them right off the bat. Good CD, though.

III - "Forever Blue" by Chris Isaak. The best heartbroken CD ever. Thirteen tracks of emotional pain and turmoil with different surrounding stories yet a fluid commonality between them. The best thing about this album may be the written love letter behind the CD-tray in the jewel case. It's remarkable in its incomprehensibility-yet-unrelenting-honesty.

IV - "Suburban Legends" by Phil Pritchett. This was the CD that got me started on P2 and, by extention, Texas Country music. What initially caught my attention about this CD was how there were comparitively so few love songs on it. One of the first CDs I ever got that was actually about life.

V - "Remain" by The Great Divide. This ironically titled CD was the last one released by Mike McClure and The Great Divide before they broke up.

VI - "Bad Man" by Wayne Mills. I was very, very, very drunk when I bought this CD. Either that unduly influenced by judgment or Mills is an infinitely better live musician than he is on CD. I've listened to this CD twice since I got it.

VII - "History for Sale" by Blue October. Rumor has it that this CD is full of songs that BO wanted to release with their previous CD, "Consent to Treatment," but their record label wouldn't allow. Ironically, right after the release of HFS, Universal resigned them and re-released the CD (which they'd previously put out on a small label).

VIII - "Truckstop Diaries" by Jason Boland. My first Texas Country CD, though Boland is an Oklahoman, so I'm not sure it counds.

IX - "Uneasy" by Macon Greyson. My recent introduction to traditional alt.country (Uncle Tupelo, Jayhawks, etc.)

X - "Song Sung and Played on Guitar" by Bob Schneider. Possibly the best accoustic CD I have ever heard.

1. What is the total amount of music files on your computer?
About 25GB, I think.

2. The last CD you bought is:
"Bandwagon" by 1100 Springs
"Rollercoaster" by Randy Rogers
"Blue Cadallac" by Houston Marchman

3. What is the song you last listened to before this message?
"Leaving New York" by REM

4. Five songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.

I - "Why Do I" by Ken Beirschbach. An obscure song by an obscure musician from Maine, but a combination of the revolving lyrics, the haunting sound, and bongo drums make it a very unique experience.

II - "Insanity & Texas" by Dub Miller. Sometimes I'm not the man I would like to be.

III - "Time Equals Distance" by Phil Pritchett. Whenever I hear this song, I say a prayer for a departed friend.

IV - "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds (sans-Five). To the extent that Eel and I have a song, this is it.

V - "Shame" by Matchbox Twenty. One of the lesser-known songs from their debut CD, I feel this way any time a relationship or promising potential relationship goes awry.

5. Who are you gonna pass this stick to (three persons and why)?
Only two, Jay and Adam, because they're both lack things to blog about.

If you had to either (a) betray a good friend who will forgive you or (b) wrong someone that you don't know very well at all who will always believe you're evil, which person would you wrong and why?

In other words, let's say that you wronged someone you barely know. Would you take solace that it wasn't someone you were close for (despite the fact that they would forgive you), or would you lament the fact that this person will never, ever forgive you (despite the fact that you barely know them).

[Note: My wording on this was bad, so I changed it up a little.]

There are things that you don't have to worry about in Texas that you do up here.

One of them would have to do with condensation freezing at the bottom of a door, freezing it shut and requiring an ice pick just to get out of your apartment.

In my twenty-three years in Houston, I never once had to worry about that.

If I were to make a list of things that I had intended to do over lunch, it might have included the following:

1) Write a post.
2) Eat some food.
3) Surf the Internet.
4) Talk to coworkers.

This would likely not have been on the list:
Open the fridge and have a tub of cottage cheese fall out. Then let it hit the fridge on the way down and bust open, sending cottage cheese everywhere. After that, spending my entire lunch hour cleaning the carpet and fridge with paper towels.

Should this have appeared on my list of things that I would like to have done over my lunch period, it would have appeared very, very low.

An email has been making the rounds. While I'm sure a number of you recieved it, I thought I'd share if for those that haven't:

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

Bonus Question:Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gascools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and deathrates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the vo lume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities: 1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A"

Chris Elam points out an interesting article on the growth of Fort Bend County, just southwest of Houston.

Location, location, location was still a big factor for Fort Bend County in 2004. Some 6,869 new homes were sold during the year, which translates to an estimated 21,568 people. The county accounts for 9 percent of the regional population, but captures 16.4 percent of the new home market share in the region.

The average home price in 2004 for resales was $192,108, while new homes averaged $230,840.

Multi-family housing posted a 638-unit gain during the year.

While the homes are pricey, the report shows 63 percent of the households in Fort Bend can afford the median-priced homes within the county, compared with 48 percent in the United States and 50 percent in Texas metropolitan areas.

The report estimates the workforce in the county at 210,000 people, but local unemployment fell to 5.2 percent, lower than the region, state and nation.

"The important number for the EDC is the number of jobs available in Fort Bend County for our residents," Appel said. "in 1990, only 41 percent could live and work in Fort Bend. Today, there are enough jobs in Fort Bend to support 61 percent of our workforce. Fort Bend County ranks at the 99.7 percentile in employment growth in the United States."

Commercial and industrial real estate space continues to be promising. There is an estimated 18.5 million square feet of industrial space with a 5.5 percent vacancy rate.

I've never cared much for most of Fort Bend county, particularly it's flagship town of Sugarland. This article miraculously makes me like it even less.

But it's instructive about one of the things that I really love about Houston. Houston is set up as the epitome of what is wrong with modern cities. Mitt Romney, the Republican Governor of Massachusetts had repeatedly held Houston up as an example of what Boston can't be allowed to become. Nearly every conversation about freeways turns on those evil commuters that hog the freeway and harm the environment.

But a closer look at what's happening in Houston and its surrounding areas demonstrates that this view is quite misguided. Anyone who has driven into town during business hours (why bother with the misnomer "rush hour" anymore?) can attest to the fact that there are indeed a lot of commuters. But for the most part the outlaying towns (even those technically part of the Houston municipality) are actually self-sufficient for the most part. Nobody I knew in Clear Lake had parents that commuted. They all worked for NASA or IBM or some other organization with a local office. The most interesting part of the above article was regarding the jobs that are being created out there.

People aren't moving there to escape the minorities or abuse the environment, but rather to live, work, and play. Suburbs and exurbs have the added benefit, of course, of being accessible to a large city. Let's not kid ourselves, without Houston, Sugarland would not be growing at nearly the rate it is. It's bolstered not just by the convenience of a sports team, opera, and whatnot, but very oftenly one partner of a couple works in the suburb and the other works in the city. That part can't be denied, but instead of demonizing the suburbs, I wonder if instead we shouldn't applaud more development out there to create the jobs that will prevent people from needing to drive in day in and day out.

Houston could easily stretch as far as Sealy to the west, Huntsville to the north, Galveston to the southeast, and Victoria to the southwest, but doing it one town at a time. Some people view this with abject horror, particularly those that don't want the roads or anything built in their back yard. But I think there is something to be said for that. Because while residents of Kingwood and Sugarland may rarely traverse on each other's grounds, there is a wonderful unity that Houston has thus far maintained and I believe can continue to maintain.

There's an old joke that a recession is when you're brother-in-law loses his job and a depression is when you lose yours.

With that in mind, I found the following two pictures fascinating:



The U.S. is in the middle of both packs. The numbers for optomism on the economy are 46/51, leading to a negative 6% net belief that the economy is doing well. But as for their family, the spread is 58/42 that their outlook is pretty good.

Possible reasons for this:
1. There's a political maxim that Americans want to pretect the assets of the wealthy because they feel that they or their children may become wealthy some day. This represents an unjustified bright look at their own financial prospects, assuming that few of them will ever actually become super-duper rich. As such, their belief that they are doing okay may be tainted by similar blinders. Even if they are suffering, they're sure that everything will turn out okay for them.
2. The media's portrayal of the economy has given people the impression that the nation is suffering economically when, in fact, most people believe they are doing well and that their prospects are good. They believe that others aren't by what they're reading in the paper.
3. Random statistical blip.

Interestingly, Canada's numbers were approximately the same on both graphs -- both considerably more optomistic than America's.

[via OTB]

When I woke up this morning, my body felt awful. It was about half an hour before I had to get up. I felt like it was going to take that entire half-hour to even get to the phone and call in sick. I felt so bad that it had infested myself into whatever dream I was having (which happens from time to time). My body crouched into a fetal position. Then, inexplicably, I fell back asleep.

The alarm woke me up half an hour later. I dreaded getting up to get to the phone. I pondered how I was going to make up the hours I was about to miss. Finally I dragged myself out of bed and...

I felt fine. No sign of any problems. I thought about it and I had no reason to be so sore before.

This stuck in my mind during the hour commute or so, when I finally came to the conclusion that I only woke up once this morning.

I was talking to Anna last night on IM. When she left, she said she was going to go play Bard's Tale and some other game. I did a double-take at Bard's Tale cause I haven't heard from that game in forever. Could a new version have come out? Sort of. They apparently bought the naming rights, but not the engine or the fiction involved.

Part of me is upset at the lifting of an honored part of my childhood for a nearly unrelated game, but the other part of me realizes: By today's standards, the original game sucked. Even the story, which they could have used, was itself pretty bland.

But once upon a time those games were the absolute best ever. EVER!

And it actually still has something over the more modern games that I've seen that appeals specifically to me: multi-character, single-player mode. Basically, I could control 6 (in the first and third game) or 7 (in the second) characters at once. Obviously they all moved together, but they fought separately (the game was non-dexterious, another benefit). It was one of my first introductions to considering inter-character relationships. Since I couldn't be all of the characters at once, the characters I created were probably the first characters I ever created anywhere.

The characters had really, really stupid names and were pretty crude in nature, but when my brother would take over the computer I'd go outside and start playing some more, playing all of the characters and have the characters talking to one another. I was never as good at it as my brother was. Though I don't think he ever solved the game, it was really fun to make copies of his characters, renaming them, and going around to thrash the weaker characters that were in spitting distance of The Guild (the starting point). Since I was aping my brother's characters (copying and renaming them), there wasn't too much challenge there so the things that could have made stuff really interesting (like characters dying) never occured. It wasn't until much later that I tried on my own, let characters die, and came up with much less pathetic names*. At that point, however, I was sixteen or seventeen and had a driver's license (not to mention a 486), so I stopped when the nostalgia wore off.

At some point a couple years back I started thinking about my characters again and trying to come up with an interesting story involving them. Unfortunately, the idea got tangled up and had too much spillover, so it'll probably never happen.

This site has all kinds of information on all three of the Bard's Tale games as well as some BT novels that were apparently written. Unfortunately, they appear to have exceeded some bandwidth limitations so a lot of the site is down presently. I'll link to it again next month when bandwidth starts anew.

I tried to get ahold of some ROMs or whatever it might take to play the old games, but unfortunately I couldn't find very much useful. There are some all-in-one copies on Amazon.com, but I'm not sure I'm willing to pay $60 for a used copy of a game that probably won't work on my system anyway. If I were that serious, I could start thinking about EverQuest.

On the other hand, the documentation alone that came with those games could well be worth the price of admission. Next time I'm down in Texas, I'll have to see what remnants of the original haven't been thrown away yet.

* - For those you dying of curiosity, in the section below I list the characters names as best I can recall them.

[Read More!]

I left five comments at various blogs today. Oddly, one over at Adrianne's and the one at Nathan's don't seem to be there. How odd...

I've been doing the whole FURL thing for a month now. One of the neat things about it is that it keeps track of how often a link is clicked on, so I know what people are more interested in. For the most part I do it for my own sake, but that's good stuff to know nonetheless.

Oddly, far and away the most popular link (with all of 14 hits) is to, of all things, an amortization calculator.

Whodathunkit?

I suppose that speaks better of my readership than would my link on the Martian Manhunter or the Speeding Outhouse.

I can't remember how old I was when I got my first watch. I was probably too old as a part of me has always been obsessed with knowing what time it was. What I do remember was that I put the watch on my right wrist. I figured that since I used my right hand for most things, I figured that's where my watch would go.

Eventually Dad noticed and informed me that right handers put their watch on their left wrist and vice-versa so that the watch doesn't get in the way of activity with our preferred shoulder-based appendage. So I reluctantly switched wrists and started putting my watch on the right correct wrist. For the longest time, I would look at the bare right wrist before looking at the left when trying to see what time it was.

My left wrist presently has a cut or sore on it. I'm not sure where I got it, but my watch's presense both aggravates it and is uncomfortable to me, so right now I'm wearing my watch on the right wrist, looking frequently at my bare left wrist.

To give you an idea of how fascinating my life is right now, I give you this post.

This post turned out to be a bit ironic.

I was at Walmart yesterday, looking for some Tupperware plastic containers to keep food fresh. I wasn't aware, or had forgotten, that Tupperware was a registered trademark of a company, much like Kleenex. I'd also forgotten, or was unaware, that Tupperware is sold by alternative means ("Tupperware Parties" I guess).

So I went into Walmart and asked an employee where I could find the tupperware. She howled in laughter. "We don't sell Tupperware!"

"Uhhh..." (thinking of lower-case t-tupperware).

"We sell Rubbermaid, but not Tupperware!"

"Oh, okay. Where's the Rubbermaid."

She showed me the way. Then, less than ten feet away from me, she told a coworker "I just got a customer asking for Tupperware!"

"HAHAHAHAHA! We don't sell Tupperware! We sell Rubbermaid!"

I can't remember ever being made fun of or berated by Walmart employees before. Much less over a subject I was discussing with coworkers and here only a couple days before.

"So, I'm happily divorced... She got convinced in her crazy head that I had sex with this girl in Columbus, Ohio. And I did and I'll tell you why. When you enter into a monogamous relationship with somebody, you usually do it at a point where you're having a lot of sex in the relationship. So you sign the papers saying "I'll only have sex with you ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, [bleep]ing ever. Well if that person, for whatever reason, stops having sex altogether... why you find yourself in quite a pickle! I'm a pretty good dog, but if you don't pet me every once in a while, it's hard to keep me under the porch. I'm not as flexible as a real dog. I'll tell you what happened, too. I was in Columbus, Ohio. I hadn't been laid in three months. Three months. You can't go three months without having sex with me or I'll go find someone else. I know cause I've seen me do it." -Ron White

[inspired by this post over at Brain Fertilizer]

the fellow that lived here before me gets a lot of mail. Most of them from money institutions.

What's disturbing is that 60% of them are from collection agencies. Since collection agencies don't generally send care letters, I would imagine it's because he has borrowed money in the past and has not yet paid back the money that he owes.

The remaining 40% are from credit card companies and are quite obviously attempts to get this fellow to borrow money from them.

In case you were wondering who the most explosive Lithuanian Jewish Cowboy Juggling Comedian to ever come out of Oregon is, it's Louie Lichtenstein.

One of the doors on my car is openable only by remote. The rest are done by key. I'm not sure why this is the case, but I'm guessing the lock on the driver's door had to be changed out. Recently the battery on my remote has died and I haven't gone about replacing it yet. This is a bit of an inconvenience because it makes me spin across the passenger's seat or reach across, open the door, and walk around to get in. It's a hassle, but I do it.

At about five in the morning, I drove from my apartment to Eel's so that I could get some sleep and use her washer and dryer while she's up in Sandpoint. The battery on the remote has been dead for month's now and while there is an alarm on the car, in only goes off by way of using the remote. While carrying a huge garbage sack full of clothes and my laptop, I must have hit the alarm button and for reasons I cannot comprehend it chose this opportunity, at five in the morning in Eel's sleepy suburban neighborhood, to go off.

And off.

And off.

I tossed my laptop (in its satchel) in the the snow, dumped my clothes on the driveway and tripped on them to fall onto the not soft concrete driveway and the ice covering it. Not feeling any pain (yet) I ran in the ice, slipped and fell into the soft snow of the yard. While it wasn't as hard as the concrete, snow on your face when it's ten degrees outside is honestly not much better. I ran to the door which was, of course, locked and not openable by way of the remote cause of the batteries which decided to die all over again. I ran back across, used the key to get into the passenger's side, and satiated the alarm the only way it satiates, sticking the key in the ignition.

The laptop was fine, though when I tripped over the clothes I knocked the bag over and spent about ten minutes picking up every loose sock.

The heat in Eel's apartment never felt so good.

Several months ago, I had a conversation with Yale about Gia and girls in general. Yale was frustrated that girls (and Gia in particular) had the proclivity to date worthless men (criminals and sloths). Yale, an upward bound college student, found it perplexing that they would prefer someone with no discernable future over someone with better long term prospects. The irony that he was complaining about this and yet focused his complaints on such a vapid, spoiled rich girl like Gia was lost on him, but that's a story for another time.

The conversation came up again with some acquaintances this week. One of them was in a science class dominated by girls that spent one three-hour lab complaining about their worthless boyfriends. They asked why women were attracted to jerks and I commented that you could get to know a lot about a girl (including but certainly not limited to whether or not they're worth your time) by the men they choose to date. I made a reference to The Ladder Theory, which they read and spurred more conversation on the matter.

But the question is why. Having been a repeatedly spurned nice guy in a former life, and having discussed the matter with scores of females since then, I have come up with what I believe is the most probable reason in large part because it explains guys' romantic failures as well as girls'. They make different mistakes, but I believe they come from the same general failure to be proactive about determining what they're truly looking for in a relationship and the unconscious motivations that guide them until they start being more decisive about what they're looking for.

Generally speaking, adolescence is a time of frivolity. Our romantic actions rarely have concrete consequences. You get together, you break up. Somewhere along the line you may lose your virginity. A few get pregnant or acquire STDs, but they are the exception. As dramatic and important as it all seems at the time, it's mostly a construct of our imaginations and neuroses. The problem is that this age of frivolity often sets our course well past the time when our actions don't have consequences. Some people don't wake up until they're thirty - or even later.

So our actions are guided by our experiences and scars acquired during a time of general irrelevence. So if we aren't motivated by the consequences of our actions during that period, what does motivate us? Instant gratification.

Men and women, in my experience, are generally gratified differently. Whether this is genetic or a product of social conditioning I'm not sure of and in either case, until the contributing factors change we will continue to achieve gratification with different goals in mind. Yes, there are exceptions (and at times I am one of them, as is my significant other). Yes, I'm painting with broad strokes. Duly noted and now moving on.

On the subject of Yale's lament, girls are more generally motivated by validation. Many of the most successful relationship books ever written acknowledge this and one of the reasons that they sell so well is that they work. A girl wants to feel appreciated and to feel special. The more special she feels, the more gratification she experiences. So lets take Joe Nice. Joe is a darn good guy who treats everyone with kindness and respect. If Joe dates a girl, he's almost sure to treat her kindly. He's likely to give her flowers and hugs and kisses. To a girl, this ought to sound absolutely great. The problem is that if Joe is nice to everyone, and is nice to his girlfriend, then while she is experiencing a degree of appreciation, she's not experiencing much in the way of feeling special. What's so special about being treated nicely about someone who treats everyone such? So her validation is somewhat limited in that regard.

Then she meets John Cool or Michael Jerk.

John communicates an air of superiority. Maybe he's a good athlete or his parents are wealthy and he can afford better clothes. Perhaps he's just really good looking. Maybe he's a decent guy and just a loner by nature or not particularly good at presenting himself (though these factors generally require some sort of benefit to keep him from being John Dork). Regardless, John keeps everyone at a distance with either wry cut downs or simple silence.

Michael Jerk also has an air of superiority, but it's generally more aggressive. He may relentless in cutting down those that are below him or he's someone that confuses individuality with assholery and being a rebel with being an individual. Or he's just extremely self-centered and solely concerned with his own gratification. Regardless, he doesn't universally treat people with any respect.

So if the problem with Joe Nice is that his affection towards her doesn't give her a feeling of being special since he is so nice to everyone, then imagine what a thrill she might get when John Cool or Michael Jerk show her positive attention. Considering that they are cool or cruel towards everyone they know, it makes her de facto special that he treats her differently. She is not only appreciated, but also special. That gives her a level of validation that Joe Nice is incapable of.

Of course John Cool and Michael Jerk will rarely actually change for a girl's hand in a relationship, but they'll show the flicker of a chance of treating her differently (and when no one is looking, might well truly treat her differently). But ultimately they will generally revert to form. She, meanwhile, sees the promised land. The chance at ultimate validation. The chance to be treated like a princess by someone guaranteed not to treat many people that way. So she'll put up with a whole lot in order to demonstrate her worthiness for his affections (whereas with Joe Nice, she'll wonder why he's such a jerk to her when he's so nice to everyone else).

So now let's take a look at guys. Guys have a word for women who treat everyone coolly or cruelly and it's not even remotely a nice one. They don't seek validation from girls in the same way that girls do from guys. All of the things being equal, guys would prefer a girl that is nice to people than one that is unnice. In fact, if a girl is supernice she's a flirt, and being with someone flirty can give a guy a height all its own on his own criterion: accomplishment. Why? Because she could get any guy she wanted and she chose him. Woohoo!

This is its own sense of validation, of course, but it's not so much based on intimacy than it is based on having a trophy. It doesn't really matter who she is or what she likes to do or even, to a degree (see paragraph below), how she treats him in private. It matters that she looks good and her stock is high (other guys want her).

This feeling of accomplishment is bolstered when he feels that she looks up to him. This is why young men are not, generally speaking, remarkably concerned about a notable lack of intelligence on her part. In fact, a lack of intelligence can be an attractive trait because if she's dumb as a bag of bricks, she'll just see him as being that much smarter. This is also a motivation behind guys being attracted to ladies that are younger than themselves. If he's 16 and she's 13, he's almost guaranteed to have more relationship and sexual experience than she is (and if not, because he lacks experience, it's an even bigger motivation because he's going to feel much smaller compared to girls his age). As such, he's more likely to be in the superior place in the relationship and she's less likely to challenge him, which gives him a greater sense of accomplishment.

The problem with these desires is that while they may be gratifying in the shorter term, they're bound to lead to long term failure. A jerk will still be a jerk if he's being rewarded for that behavior. A dumb girl will remain dumb because she, too, has no incentive to change. Eventually the girl will get so frustrated with her jerk and the guy so bored with his ditz that they will let the relationship go. Oftenly, they'll then pursue the same relationship over and over again.

Why? Why not. They're seeking gratification and, for a little while at least, they see the promise of achieving it. It didn't work that time, but who's to say that it won't work out the next time?

This attitude is particularly prevalent in younger men and women, though you run in to a wall enough times eventually you'll figure out that there isn't a door there. Some sooner and some later.

At some point during their 20's and 30's, their actions start having consequences. Even if the only consequence is wasted time, that time becomes more valuable with the biological clock ticking away and more and more of their friends settling down. So when people start really looking at what they want not for immediate gratification but for a partner, people become more particular. Joe Nice starts looking like a much better candidate for the father of her children than he did when it came to a high school boyfriend. Jane Ditz doesn't look to be a particularly good mother of his children and somewhat embarassing at dinner parties. So whereas the guy and girl were previously looking for something that made them feel good, they start looking for someone to build a life with.

Some boys and girls grow out of this early while it takes others a little longer. Some, of course, never do and others never really fell into it in the first place (or set their gratification with a different set of criteria).

"If you're trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right." -Paul Graham

Following the lead of Kuff and Norbizness, here is what I've seen from the Bottom 100 movies in IMDB

In its entirety:
#21 Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie - To tell you how memorable this movie was, it took me five minutes to figure out if it was this one I saw or Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie. I finally determined that it was Turbo because it was released in 1997, and I remember seeing the movie because I had only started dating Anna a few months ago. She still worked in the movie theater where she and I met and the movie was an excuse to see her on a night where she had to work and I wouldn't have otherwise had the opportunity. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...
#35 Hercules in New York - This movie had only two redeeming qualities to me: first is that it had Arnold Schwarzenegger (billed "Arnold Strong") dubbed over by an American actor. Second, I'm a sucker for anything with Greek mythology in it. As this movie proves: anything.
#45 Police Academy 6: City Under Siege - I not only have seen this movie, but I had it on tape and watched it repeatedly. My best friend at the time, Frank, was a big fan of the Police Academy series and we actually did our own knock-off radio show. In all honesty, it's pretty much a by-the-numbers stupid cop movie. I haven't seen it in forever, and while I don't dispute that it might be among the 100 worst movies ever made, I... okay, I guess I just have a sentimental attachment to the movie.
#52 Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach - This one was so bad that whenever Frank suggested it, I suggested we just watch PA6 again instead. No redeeming value.
#54 Captain America - The perfect paint-by-numbers superhero movie. It's got the origin, the villain, and saving the president. The President, interestingly enough, is played by Ronnie Cox, who often plays presidential roles. In this one, however, his character is nearly reduced to tears speaking so passionately about the importance of recycling styrofoam cups (this is to prove that he is a good president and thus worthy of being saved by Captain American). Matt Salinger played Cap. I think he really might have had something with the sense of alienation and whatnot that Cap must have felt, but it was the wrong movie to... well.. display any acting ability. It just made him stick out.
#62 Mortal Kombat: Annihilation - It's almost humorous that they kill off one of the two male leads of the previous flick in the first five minutes. I'm not sure whether or not it's because Cage was killed in the video game or because they couldn't sign Linden Ashby (who was excellent in the first MK movie) to play the part. But that happened in as clumsy and undramatic manner as possible, making this movie bad even by stupid action video game movie standards. There was one bright spot: The actor who played Rayden was outstanding. I can't believe that he hasn't done much of anything else. My thoughts on the actor may be somewhat skewed by the fact that he followed Christopher Lambert, who made an awful Rayden.
#91 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace - The late Christopher Reeves made a great Superman actor, but a horrible writer. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Worse than Captain America. Worst Superhero movie ever.

Parts of:
#2 Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 - Eel and I saw the end of this one when we went to the theater in order to see the next movie playing. This movie was bad enough that Scott Baio deserved to this.
#25 Kazaam - This movie didn't actually look as bad to me as I had thought it would be. I stopped watching after about ten minutes or so, though.
#48 Teen Wolf Too - I saw the end. Teen Wolf (Too!) wins the contest. That just ruined this movie for me forever.
#72 Double Dragon - I don't understand how anything Paul Dini (known as the architect behind Batman: The Animated Series) and Mark Dacascos (the capable actor who played The Crow in the TV series) did could be this bad. It just doesn't make sense to me.

So I was typing on my computer a few minutes ago and I felt a raindrop on my head.

Let me repeat that.

I was typing on my computer a few minutes ago and I felt a raindrop on my head.

It's raining in my apartment.

Well, it's actually not rain, but condensation. Unfortunately, it's not limited to my bathroom at present and the "stormcloud" is above my now wet bed and over my computer (which is, thankfully, still try.

I was hoping to ease some of the temperature differential by keeping a window open. But I'm not sure to what degree that's responsible. It's actually getting warmer outside.

The other possible culprit is my still-running water, which has been going for nearly a month now. But oddly it's no worse in the bathroom than it is. in the main room.

So I dunno. I'm going to need to find a tarp or something to put over my computer, though.

CW: What is that?
RAW: It's a map of the United States based on what term they use to describe a soft drink.
CW: Yellow is soda, blue is pop, what's red?
RAW: Coke.
CW: Wait, is this about soft drinks or Coca-cola?
RAW: Soft drinks in general. In Texas, for instance, if you ask for a coke they'll usually ask you what kind and you can answer Dr Pepper, Pepsi, or whatever.
CW: Wow, people from the south are that lazy?
RAW: It's not lazy, it's just the term we use.
CW: But Coke is a brand-name. It's pretty lazy to use it to describe all soft drinks.
RAW: What's that box over there on your desk?
CW: What, the Kleenex?
RAW: No, the Sam's facial tissue, if you want to get technical. Kleenex describes a brand name...

While the Pop vs. Soda (vs. Coke) rages on in the states, I discovered an interesting thing about Colombia. Apparently, Colombians call soft drinks "water" and water "pure water" (or their Spanish equivalents).

I made a couple changes to the blogrolodexical, adding the blogger's state (except in cases where the state name is part of the blog's title). I figured that since one of the first things I'm interested in about a blogger is where they're from, it might be helpful.

Also, per Kavey's request, the logo at the top (and link to the right) now don't put the www.* in front of the site name, making logging in easier.

Since eliminating the www I've experienced relatively few log-in problems (exceptions being the cache, which right now wants to lead me down the www path, but I'm working on that). Anyone out there still experiencing problems?

Dateline - November 27, 2004

I was getting my stuff together to head over to Eel's when I forgot to get some coat hangers. On my way back I saw a white luxury sedan looking car pull into the parking lot. The passenger darted out of the car and to the door downstairs. As I went into my apartment, I could hear his knock from inside.

Except that it didn't sound like a knock. It sounded like something worse. Pound. Pound. Whack. Whack! WHACK! WHACK!!

And then a snap and sqeak as the door opened. I went outside to check out what was going on. Most particularly, I was listening to see if I could hear the sound of a fight or something. I kept looking down when I made eye-contact with the driver, a woman about my age. She whistled and he hustled back to the car and, as if I needed more evidence that something bad was going on, the car pulled out of the parking lot as if it were leaving the pit in a NASCAR competition.

In the process I got the license plate number. I mulled over for about twenty minutes whether or not I should call the police. The first argument against doing so was that it was none of my business. On the other hand, one of my neighbors called the police less than a week before when my car was broken into and I'd just commented to someone that one of the nice things about my complex is that, in general, we have each other's back and keep an eye out for one another. The second argument against calling the cops was that whoever's apartment it was might not want the cops snooping around his or her place for whatever (ahem, drugs) reason.

I walked down and saw that the door had indeed been whacked open. I called out to see if anybody had been hurt, but got no reply. Without entering, I glanced around and the apartment looked pretty bare, so it was hard to determine if anything was missing. I still didn't know whose it was, but I called the police and waited outside in the cold to make sure that no one pillaged what was in the apartment.

The cops showed up about forty minutes later. I told them what I knew. I gave them the license plate number and the best description of the assailant that I could recall. Unfortunately, beyond the license plate number, I didn't have much. I figured the plate number was all that they would need, and while I was right, they were already thinking in terms of prosecution rather than just identification.

The next day I got two calls, one good and one bad. The bad call was from Yale. While I'd known that Yale had moved downstairs, I'd thought that he was an apartment or two over from the one that got broken in to. Turns out that I was mistaken. The bad news, however, was that the theif had gotten away my VCR and two of my DVD's, all of which I'd loaned him. The dollar total from this break-in was actually worse than that of Quan's break-in on my car.

The good call came from Detective Morgan, who was in charge of the investigation. Morgan told me that patrol had stopped the car with the plates I'd given and that the car matched the description I'd given, as did the driver and passenger. He asked me if I would be willing and able to identify them in a photo line-up. I told him that would be fine. He informed me that because the suspect didn't have an Idaho drivers license, it was going to take longer to arrange the photographs for the line-up (incidentally, the whole thing taught me a lot about how some police line-ups work).

The next day I heard from Yale again, who was asking me all kinds of questions about the driver. It turns out that he had a good idea of who it was: a coworker who knew he wouldn't be there. My description matched the particular individual, whom he said he was going to confront.

Morgan called back two days later and asked me to be around my apartment at 11:00. At 11:15 he called to let me know that Yale had dropped the complaint. By doing so, the police could no longer investigate the matter and Yale could not change his mind at a later date if he wanted to.

I contacted Yale the next day. He said that the coworker in question had fessed up to doing it and offered to give our stuff back if he would drop the complaint. The problem was that Yale didn't have our stuff back and by dropping the complaint, said coworker was under no obligation to give us our stuff back. Furthermore, it was my belief that he no longer had what was taken anyway figuring that lost profits were better than the risk of being found with the stolen articles.

So it was of no surprise that Yale, Stoner, and I never got our stuff back. Yale has volunteered to pay me back for what was taken as soon as he got the money. The problem is that Yale generally lives hand-to-mouth on just above minimum wage.

So it's of no surprise that I find myself price-shopping for a new VCR and a couple of new DVDs.

I was driving around Gate City preparing to take some photographs. It was a rare day that while everything was covered with snow and clouds were out, vision was good. So I drove around town and took a couple of pictures, but there was one that I really, really wanted to take before the sun went down.

One of the nice things about this town is that the mountains can provide great vantage points to take photographs from. One of the best views of this town is actually from the freeway. While I wasn't enthusiastic about pulling over on a busy freeway bridge with a small shoulder, I knew that there was a hill nearby that I could climb and get nearly the same picture.

It took a bit of time to track down exactly where I needed to climb, but the excitement of when I found it was enough for me. It was taller than I figured it would be, but what could it hurt?

So I got the camera and started walking up. The first thing I noticed when I was about ten or fifteen feet up was how cold my hands were getting. I'd left the gloves in the car. Too late, I figured. The next thing I noticed was that when you're climbing up a hill that has snow all over it, a hill is taller than it looks even when it is already taller than you figured it would be. The third thing I noticed is that this "snow" stuff is wet and when you slip and have to catch yourself, you're essentially putting your hands in water. The fourth thing I noticed was how much colder wet hands get than dry ones do.

My hands were freezing and my face was starting to get whipped by the wind. I was already starting to not feel too great when I got halfway up. It was too late for me to turn back, so I kept going.

The fifth lesson that I learned was that when you're on a steep, snowy hill, it actually takes longer to get down than it did to get up. The sixth lesson was that not only does the skin on the face and hands start to hurt with prolonged exposure, but you start to feel light-headed.

Light-headed, to say the least.

By the time I got down I wasn't even thinking about all the other pictures that I wanted to take. I was just thinking that I felt like I was going to pass out, I hurt, and I really, really wanted to get home. The injuries were off-setting, thankfully. The light-headedness that made me want to pass out behind the wheel was cancelled out by the pain in my hands that was keeping me awake. The stomach, which was starting to feel sick, was barely even able to register.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that the pain I felt in my hands was probably the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life. For a short while I felt worse right then than I did at any point during my bout with pneumonia early in 2004.

When I got home I ran my hands through some warm water and collapsed on my bed. I didn't even bother to close the front door of my apartment. I laid on my hands to give them extra warmth and fell asleep that way.

The light-headedness persisted for about two days. While I was actually able to function physically, I called in sick to work simply because I didn't trust myself behind the wheel for the hundred or so miles that I would have to drive round trip. And it took nearly a week before typing ceased to be at least a little bit painful.

So, there are two morals to the story:
1. If you're going to go out in windy, cold weather, make sure you wear your gloves.
2. The author of this site is a moron.

Pictures below
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