Last Year

Last year, not long after moving into our new home, I went to work the Oklahoma Ren Faire in Muskogee Oklahoma. It was quite an experience. Although the show wasn't aweful I still didn't have a great time. For one, I was alone. Rossana was overseeing various repairs at the homefront. I suppose if I had been alone for a month in New York or L.A. I might have been able to pass the time easily. But this was godforsaken Oklahoma.

I saw everything that needed to be seen in two days. After four days of sitting in a cheap Motel room I started to dift out of my own head, like the opening scene from Apocalypse Now. There were five good Chinese buffets in the city and there was a 24 hour Ice Cream parlor across the street from me. I had to get out or I would become Marlon Brando.

I talked my way into a 1 month trial membership at a local gym. I found the public library so I could surf the web and I eventually took a part-time job as a sign maker. The work kept me busy and helped the week days pass faster. I also got to shoot the shit with some great rennies. Thanks to Hoss, Virgil, his assistant and Randy I kept my sanity.

Here are some pics and commentary from the trip for you to enjoy.

Note to self...

So, if you're already feeling pretty crappy about your species because they tend to do awful things to each other in the name of science (see below) then maybe you shouldn't go and see Hotel Rwanda two days later.

My insides physically hurt leaving the theater. You may not remember the civil war in Rwanda between the tutsi and hutu's. Remember? Oh, you may have never heard about it in the first place. After all, we had other fish to fry back then. And there's still the tricky issue of whether or not actual genocide occurred. Is only a million dead really genocide? What about the 80 of women who were systematically raped?

This is a great film and I advise you to see it. Great performance by Don Cheadle. And it might make you pause for a moment the next time you see a little blurb on CNN about the latest fighting in Darfur. Every time says there is fighting in XXX, that means that a few thousand people were killed. Probably in some rather horrible way.

Evil

The word 'Evil' isn't used much in a professional sense. It is an inexact term. One mans evil is another mans pre-emptive war to stop Saddam from using WMD's... ahem. Psychologists & scientists don't like to use the term. Is someone evil if they hurt people as a result of suffering from szchitzophrenia?Certainly not. Is euthanasia evil? You can argue back and forth.

But make no mistake. There is evil in the world. True, concentrated evil. Well documented, and Government sanctioned. More specifically, there are evil people. People who's actions are so beyond the pale of human decency and compassion that no other word describes them. And even when these evil acts are stopped, those responsible continue to live their lives without punishment. Below are three stories. You can do some googling on your own, I could only take so much before I began loosing all my faith in our species again and had to stop.

The stories are about how a hospital in Austria killed approx 800 children in order to study their brains during WWII. One of the doctors who was right in the thick of it, is still alive today. He has never served a day of jail time. There is a documentary coming out called "Grey Matter" that deals with this story. I honestly don't think I could watch it. The stories below were awful enough:

http://www.cbc.ca/witness/graymatter/clinic.html

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/mar2001/ber4-m03.shtml

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/171/6/619

I don't know about you, but I'm going to go crawl into bed and hope the nightmares don't keep me awake all night.

Very Cool - A pirate ship made from snow

Apparently there are some clever monkeys over at Dartmouth college. These monkeys decided to revive a longstanding tradition of creating a massive snowsculpture for their winter carnival. What did they make? How about a 56 foot high pirate ship!



Click for biggerness.


It took them quite a while, using volunteers and press gangs etc. But the end result is pretty frickin cool. Apparently, the tradition started many years ago. The coolest sculpture for me was made in 1969, a dragon that breathed fire. Very, very cool.

Zen and the Art of Web Development

I have had many vocations over the years. Window washer, puppeteer, sign maker, technical writer, fire eater, phone book deliverer, the list goes on and on. About 8 years ago I somehow I managed to talk my way into a job as a web developer at a large company called Pioneer-Standard (no, not the company that makes stereos). I stayed with this job for 5 years, mostly because it paid pretty damn well and I worked with some cool people.

Although I am no longer working for a vast corporate machine (they sold off our half of the company), I still continue to do freelance web development. My clients now are small businesses and artists who don't have the time or patience to learn computer mumbo-jumbo. I provide e-commerce websites for a reasonable price and get to keep my skills passably sharp. Right now I am working on a sight for a small screen printing outfit. They're developing a line of Nascar parody t-shirts. You can take a look at how the site is shaping up here.

For this project, the layout come from another graphic artist. The artist works mostly in print, which allows you a lot of freedom of design. The shopping cart software I use can be customized to match her design, but it is a time-consuming process. It's part image manipulation in photoshop and part code tinkering. The odd thing is that I actually like working on the site in this way. Altering the code to match the clients design requires dozens of small changes in many different files. The process of tracking down and changing the code is rather like doing a crossword. When one item is changed, other code changes become visible. When I get into a groove I seem to loose track of time. I started today's work at 2:30 and its almost 1am now. I could easily keep going, My mind is alert, but I'd pay for it tomorrow.

Here are some other sites that I have worked on:

www.aspenstore.com
www.ruppsworld.com
www.nightwalkerart.com

Go Steve- It's your birthday...

Yesterday was a damn fine day. A collection of friends went with my sweetie and me to the massive Home and Garden show. We perused the many gardens and lusted after items of home goodness that we mostly can't afford.

After that it was back to Bag End for food and cake. Nothing fancy, just a great day with some friends. We talked and laughed way into the night. I got a few gifts and phone calls from my brother, dad and an old friend from high school.

There are times that I truly forget how old I am, or rather, what my age is. Old is a tricky word. I've met people who think that 50 is old. Once they hit that age they switch into 'old person mode'. It freaky. Mention doing something out of the ordinary and they shake their heads and say, "No, I'm tool old for that nonsense". They look back instead of forward. They loose their sense of wonder. And once they have accepted this phase, the process of aging seems to speed up and intensify for them. It's a frieghtening thing to watch.

Then there's the couple I met at the Art Museum last week. 83 years old and they were planning on going to Egypt in a month. They were there to do some research. Brush up on the culture. They're outlook on life was fantastic and their enthusiasm was infectious. When I am 83, I want to be planning my first visit to the moon. Oh sure, it's crowded during the summer, the low gravity can give you the runs and the food isn't as good as at home, but it's an adventure!

Thanks to Lindsey, Chris, Carol, Jim, Jenny, Rupp, Ed and Duff for making my B-day. A good day with friends is more valuable than gold.

**UPDATE** My friend Jim Taber wrote to remind me that we've known each other since grade school. My bad. Actually, I believe that we actually served together as fellow soldiers under Hadrian in another life. But explaining the intricasies of the Roman camapign into Gaul would have taken too long.

Sweet Jesus I can't take it!

Why WHY must there be so much coolness in this world??? In case tanks and missile launchers for sale on ebay aren't enough for you, some guy has made a heavily armed, armored, flame-throwing herse!!!



The site is being pounded right now, so you might want to come back in a day or two to oogle the evil goodness. There are even instructions for building your own flame thrower. From the site:

The most common reaction I get (aside from the goat fuckers who always yell out "Ghostbusters!" when I drive by, and yes, they are goat fuckers, don't fool yourself) is "Isn't that dangerous? Having combustible gas on your roof?" to which I have to give a little PSA on propane.

Propane is actually pretty damned safe, at least as safe as you get when you are in the market of 15 foot fireballs. Propane, hydrocarbon C3H8, requires a combustion point of at least 940 degrees. Gasoline on the other hand has a combustion point of 430 degrees, and a Cadillac tank holds some 30 gallons of this stuff. If my car ever did get to a temperature of 940 degrees, I somehow gather that my problems are going to be much bigger than a ruptured propane tank.

This is the kind of shit that makes this the greatest country on the face of the earth. (snif)

Keen - I can make art!

I have a lot of funny to give, but it is trapped in an artistically crippled body. Every day I think up cartoons that are so goddamn funny I literally piss myself with uncontrollable laughter. But these comics can't get out of my head. These hands, these horrible hands...I curse them.

But now I don't need talent! Thanks to this clever site, I can make my own funny 3-panel picture-type comics for the amusemnent of myself and (presumably) others. Try it out and then send the results to your friends...or enemies.



The site doesn't seem to let you save the finished work (it's composed of multiple images) but a quick ALT + PrtScr can capture the page for later editing. There are also a few other clever creative programs for you to play with. Joy!

Another cool thing I need

Sometime I am afraid of my own greed. To be biblical, my covetousness. I want shit. Lots of it. I don't need it all, I just think some shit is so cool that I should be the one to posess it. I am not rude, I would certainly share the joy of my stuff with others. But at the end of the day, it should be mine.

In witness therof here is the link to a goddamn X-box that some clever monkeys modded into a 1970 Millenium Falcon toy. Clever monkeys indeed...

What Democracy means to Me...

From the late, great Jonny Carson:

To me, democracy means placing trust in the little guy, giving the fruits of nationhood to those who built the nation. Democracy means anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president.

Democracy is people of all races, colors, and creeds united by a single dream: to get rich and move to the suburbs away from people of all races, colors, and creeds. Democracy is having time set aside to worship — 18 years if you're Jim Bakker.

Democracy is buying a big house you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you wish were dead. And, unlike communism, democracy does not mean having just one ineffective political party; it means having two ineffective political parties.

Democracy means freedom of sexual choice between any two consenting adults; Utopia means freedom of choice between three or more consenting adults. But I digress. Democracy is welcoming people from other lands, and giving them something to hold onto — usually a mop or a leaf blower. It means that with proper timing and scrupulous bookkeeping, anyone can die owing the government a huge amount of money.

Democracy means a thriving heartland with rolling fields of Alfalfa, Buckwheat, Spanky, and Wheezer. Democracy means our elected officials bow to the will of the people, but more often they bow to the big butts of campaign contributors.

Yes, democracy means fighting every day for what you deserve, and fighting even harder to keep other weaker people from getting what they deserve. Democracy means never having the Secret Police show up at your door. Of course, it also means never having the cable guy show up at your door. It's a tradeoff. Democracy means free television. Not good television, but free.

Democracy is being able to pick up the phone and, within a minute, be talking to anyone in the country, and, within two minutes, be interrupted by call waiting.

Democracy means no taxation without representation, and god knows, we've just about had the hell represented out of us. It means the freedom to bear arms so you can blow the "o" out of any rural stop sign you want.

And finally, democracy is the eagle on the back of a dollar bill, with 13 arrows in one claw, 13 leaves on a branch, 13 tail feathers, and 13 stars over its head. This signifies that when the white man came to this country, it was bad luck for the Indians, bad luck for the trees, bad luck for the wildlife, and lights out for the American eagle.

I thank you.

Linky Goodness

Whenever I get to speak with friends there is often a neat exchange of cool or useful information. This information is often located on the internets and it would be a shame if we kept that linky goodness to ourselves. So here are some of the sites I visit on a regular basis.

www.morons.org Self Explanitory
www.boingboing.net Cool things
www.engadget.com Gadget Goodness
www.fark.com Link-o-rama
www.aintitcoolnews.com Film geeks, unite!
www.penny-arcade.com Webcomic with bite
www.pvponline.com Another webcomic
www.snopes.com THE place to check out the crap that comes into your inbox before you forward it on to everyone under the sun

www.illwillpress.com Squirelly Wrath!!


So, what links are YOU clicking on??

Cool - What I need is a tank

Found this over on Ebay. What was I looking for when I stumbled across this item? None of your goddamn business. Suffice it to say that this is something that I need. Any anyone who wants to send me some spare change to make this happen, well, you rock.

Cool - Germans make with the funny

My personal link-o-rama is FARK.com and it's where I found this article. It seems that some clever krauts are placing little American flags into piles of dog poo. Even better, they're now placing little flags with Bush's picture into poo as well.



I have to respect this quiet, yet clever way of disagreeing with our countries foreign policies. Although the police have tried to find the culprits, they have no idea what to do with them even if they cought them red handed.

Soooo cooool ..... Must get

Like many geeks, I believe that it would be extremely cool to have a secret crimefighting lair. It would also be cool to have a super-villain lair, from which I could plan civilization's downfall. My preference as to which alignment, good or evil, is based mostly upon how cool the lair is decorated. Whichever lair has THIS item will get my business:



You can find details at this site, which is in Japanese. This does me little good as I myself am not Japanese. Try this translation from google. It appears that it costs 3,990 yen or about $39 USD. I am sorely tempted to order this. After all, you never know when your brilliant plan will go to shit and you need to make your secret base a crater pronto.

No protest for me

There are many people who believe that I am first and foremost a capitalist. They are, I suppose, correct. But despite my prowess at sales I am not a worshipper of the almighty dollar. I have never judged the quality of my life upon the amount of money I am earning. Indeed, I enjoyed my earlier life quite well living from paycheck to paycheck.

So here I am, in our slow season, and what with the election being what it was (a farce) I considered doing something I've never done before. Protesting. I come from a proud family of protesters. My father protested the Vietnam War, my brother has protested, even my mother has gone to Washington a few times. So I felt that the upcoming inauguration would be a good opportunity to make my opinion known.

I didn't plan on joining the youth of our nation, yelling and waving banners with slogans like 'No blood for oil" etc. Those people will never get within a half mile of Bush. No, I planned on dressing nice and neat, maybe wearing a tie. I planned on getting onto the motorcade route, and when that stupid monkey passed by I planned on turning my back on him.

I talked with a few friends who showed some interest in going. But there are a lot of logistical barriers to attending a protest during an inauguration where the city has been locked down as if under martial law.

And then life seemed to tap me on the shoulder. It informed me that my home had a leak. It reminded me that we're having a guy hang drywall and a circuit breaker seems to keep popping without reason. It showed me our business account, and while we did good sales this season, we also bought a van and paid for it outright. It reminded me that the Ren season is months off.

So I reluctantly fired up my browser and found a sci-fi convention that wasn't too far away and might generate some income. It starts the day after the inauguration and it would be almost impossible to do the protest and still get to the con in time to set up and start generating sales. I tried for two days to find some other event but there was nothing on the radar unless I was willing to go to Texas or the UK, both of which would require too much outlay for an unknown event.

I feel like I've let down my family, even though they didn't know what I planned on doing. And worse, I feel like I have let an opportunity pass me by which will not come again (at least for this presidente'). Rossana is a pragmatist and she doesn't feel that my presence there would make a great difference, and she is right to a point. But what if 50,000 people who felt like me showed up, and all turned their back on this warmonger? That sends a message. I can only hope that there are other who will do what it takes to make their voices heard.

For now I am forced to bow to economic necessity, and it kind of sucks.