A transit rant from 2007

I posted this on the Martian Cartel forum back in 2007 and for some reason never included it here. Either that or I am inept at searching my own blog. If it is actually here, think of this as a summer rerun rather than an accidental repeat.

As context , in 2007 I took the bus daily to work and in fact have had to do so for nearly every job I’ve had in the last 20+  years. I have been on Vancouver area buses thousands of times.

I do not generally like the experience, as you shall see below.

A Salute to my Fellow Passengers

A salute to my fellow passengers! I bid you a warm and hearty hello, one and all. Especially…

Mr. “I’m wearing a backpack the size of Kansas and I am not taking it off.” Thank you for slapping me in the face with your backpack while grooving out obliviously to your iPod. Hey, that reminds me…

Thanks to Mr. “I like to share my music with everyone, even when I’m wearing earphones.”  Yes, your iPod really does go to 11, just like the speakers in Spinal Tap. The Europeans don’t like it much but what do they know? They gave us Wham! The important thing isn’t that you’re going deaf but that I can clearly hear the words that accompany your horrible taste in music.

Ms “I like the exit but not for leaving!” Hey, look, the rear doors don’t have anyone standing there, so why not head over and block the exit? When people try to leave the bus, act surprised — every time it happens. Bonus points if you’re grossly obese and think that standing sideways makes a difference in letting people by. Hint: every side of you is fat.

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Five things you won’t see on “How It’s Made”

“How It’s Made” is like comfort food for my brain. There’s something about watching the assembly of mundane, everyday items I find soothing. Sure, I don’t need to know how fig newtons are made or what goes into putting together a model train car but dang it, I like it.

Here are five items you probably won’t see featured on “How It’s Made”:

  1. Electric chairs
  2. Vibrators
  3. Bedpans*
  4. Money shots
  5. Anthrax

 

* there’s an outside chance they could actually do this one

10 Pairs of Shorts: Update #1 for 2014

Two items of note for my short story collection 10 Pairs of Shorts:

1. I have concept art for the cover. Even ebooks need covers. I’m hoping to have something a little more professional than some self-published books. I’m not suggesting the below is not professional by example. I mean, there is no Comic Sans used at all. Still.

A book cover

2. Another story is more or less ready for the collection, bringing the total up to six of 20 or three pairs of shorts. I hope to have another half-pair ready by next week.

 

When musical excess works: 69 Love Songs (box set)

By happenstance I happened across a post in the Random Thoughts and Questions thread on Broken Forum where someone mentioned a song they had been listening to called “Papa Was a Rodeo”. They had linked the YouTube video (as I have below) and at first I gave it little thought. Most people on BF don’t post about music in the random thoughts thread because there is another dedicated to posting all about your favorite bands I’ve never heard of and will never listen to.

Papa Was a Rodeo is a song from a band that falls into this category, an indie group called The Magnetic Fields.

I returned back to the post because the name of the song did kind of intrigue me and I found the name of the band interesting.

The first thirty seconds of the song I was struck by how tuneless the singer’s voice seemed. Something kept me listening, though, and I realized the slow, stately rhythm of the song had hooked me. (I later found the frontman of the group Stephin Merritt has an untrained voice.)

One catchy song does not a great band make yet I still found myself buying the box set featuring “Papa Was a Rodeo”, a sprawling three disc album called 69 Love Songs. The nice thing about buying your music digitally is I don’t have to worry about losing any of the discs or misplacing the box.

I kind of miss having the box, actually.

The album covers a wide range of musical styles and features multiple vocalists, though Merritt dominates. The lyrics are dry, sardonic, bitter and even occasionally tender. This is a perfect example of having a hunch, taking a chance and having it pay off. I haven’t even gotten to the third disc yet and love this giant mess of songs about love (which is different than love songs, as Merritt would remind you). Definitely recommended.

Writing projects. All of them.

I decided to put together a spreadsheet that would finally collect together all of my various writing projects from over the years.

I left out anything that was little more than a sketch or idea. It had to have at least enough substance to count as unfinished to make the list. I also left out all of the treasure of my youth that were scrawled in crayon, written with a leaky fountain pen (they all leaked) or made via the incredible clatter of my portable Smith Corona typewriter, which looked very much like this one (yes, it was blue and it was awesome…at making a racket):

Smith Corona portable
“I can’t hear you, I’m creating art!”

In the end I was somewhat surprised to have sixty stories listed, ranging from finished copies suitable for publication/framing/lining bird cages to others that were little more than a few rough scenes desperately clinging to life. Fittingly, one of these is a short story called “Writer’s Block”.

I’ll edit this post to go into a bit more detail about the genres and so on soon.

Nerd rage: Razer Synapse 2.0 software

I originally posted this on Broken Forum but the process bugged me so much that I feel obligated to repost it here.

I hooked up my Deathadder 2013 edition mouse to my MacBook because I switched over to a Logitech 700s on my PC and was no longer using the Deathadder there. Using the built-in drivers the Deathadder seemed a bit twitchy on the Mac, with the cursor often leaping from the external monitor back to the laptop’s display. I decided to install the much-maligned Razer Synapse 2.0 driver configuration thingie, which requires you to be online (initially, at least).

First I had to create an account. The system kept telling me that my chosen username and/or password were bad without providing any details as to why. I finally figured out it didn’t like special characters in passwords. What is this, the 1890s? Anyway, I got to where the account was created and apparently missed a verification email with a link I had to click on (because the page made no mention of it). I tried my username/password combo, knowing it was correctly entered but again the system kept saying it wasn’t (due to the aforementioned unmentioned verification requirement).

Here’s the best part, though: after several “unsuccessful” attempts I was locked out.

Of a driver.

I could not configure my mouse unless I waited at least five minutes first. At that point the system would generously grant me the privilege of entering my username and password again.

Instead I uninstalled the software and made a promise to myself to never buy another Razer product. (The uninstall naturally did not allow me to just drag the icon off the menu bar, I had to hunt down a separate uninstall app in the Applications/Library folder. But it is gone now. Hopefully.)

Welcome to Hat Francisco, April 1906

Via a link on digg I was shown this 11-minute film shot on April 14, 1906 in San Francisco, four days before the major earthquake that devastated the city.

While there is a certain tragic quality in seeing these people going about their ordinary lives not knowing the great destruction that was imminent, I was struck by several things. First, the roadway seen in the video–Market Street– is remarkably wide given that much of the traffic was still horse-drawn. Second, I love the utter casualness of the people dashing across and in-between the automobiles, streetcars, bicycles and horse-drawn carriages. Even as they come within inches of being run down, they maintain an air of perfect nonchalance.

Mostly, though, I notice the hats. I watched the entire 11 minutes and did not see a single person, whether man, woman or child, who was not wearing some kind of hat or cap. People loved hats back then. They probably slept while wearing them. Judging from the size of some, I have no doubt that they may have even protected certain people from debris raining down on them during the quake. Seriously, a few women in the film are wearing hats that are about two feet high. By the time a brick got through that it’d probably only muss the hair.

I was also surprised by how many cars there were. Looking it up, the Model T didn’t come out until 1908, so this appears to be the transition period where cars were still too expensive for most but affordable enough for many to no longer be rare. It must have sucked to be a horse back then, having to share the road with a bunch of noisy tin buckets full of yahoos. Fancy yahoos wearing hats.

The very tiny miracle run

Average pace: 5:31/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce Loop and Conifer Loop
Distance: 7.04 km
Weather: Fog and low cloud
Temp: 3-5ºC
Wind: light to nil
Calories burned: 558
Total distance to date: 2501 km

I was going to run last weekend but both days we had monsoon-like rains and motivating yourself to do your second run after seven weeks off when there are monsoon-like rains is…challenging.

But today the weather was calm, with low fog and a brisk temperature that was only 3ºC. Still, no rain meant no excuses, so I headed out late in the morning.

My plan was to officially run 5K but to extend that if possible as I was only 6 km away from hitting the 2,500 km milestone (kilometerstone?) on Nike+. I would walk whatever was left and take the SkyTrain back from the Production Way station not too far from Burnaby Lake.

Since my last run was 13 days ago I figured my time would be worse and it was–5:31/km vs 5:22/km. Because I didn’t feel too bad while running and the time off I’m not overly concerned with the slower pace.

I also managed to push to 7 km total and really could have run farther but my leg muscles were starting to cry like a pair of kids that had their ice cream snatched away. This meant I did indeed pass the 2,500 km total. It would have been nice if I had done it while running blazing fast but I finished upright, so it’s all good.

The very tiny miracle was me passing a pair of women who were jogging ahead of me around the 4 km mark. Granted they were barely moving fast enough to qualify as running and I passed in the most deliberate way possible but still, it was nice to know I could still pass others.

I felt a stitch or two early on but nothing serious and although my left foot was a bit sore before I even headed out, it didn’t get any worse and was overall fine. The Achilles tendon was pleasantly a non-factor again. I think maybe it actually healed or something.

I’m looking forward to running more regularly and getting back into peak form again.

The light jacket and t-shirt proved sufficient despite the cool temperatures. It’s also nice to not have to bring gloves as my hands warm up fairly quickly without them. I saw a few other joggers that were bundled up like it was 40 below or something. Maybe they’re from anywhere other than the west coast.

My long personal nightmare is finally over

I think I’ve gotten over my Bejeweled addiction.

I’ve unfortunately replaced it with a Mahjong addiction but at least I get semi-profound chunks of wisdom at the end of each game. You know, stuff like “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” or  “Man, I hope you invested in some good shoes if you’re walking a thousand miles”.

In fact, I think I’ll head off to enrich my life with more ancient wisdom right now.

Random unanswerable questions

Here’s something to keep you up late at night: think about all the questions you can ask but never get answers for. I don’t mean profound, thought-provoking questions like “How many stars are there in the universe?” or “What’s the highest number you can count to?”

No, I mean simple stuff like “How many people on this train with me have never been on it before?” or “What would it be like to be a bird afraid of heights?” Okay, the second one could probably be answered with “It would suck” but for the first one, how would you ever know? Sure, it’s theoretically possible you could find out the answer by simply asking everyone, but you have to make a lot of assumptions for this to work:

  • everyone you ask is willing to answer
  • everyone speaks the same language as you
  • everyone who answers is being truthful or understands the question
  • you can meet the above conditions before the next stop where some will get off and others get on, polluting the sample

The reality is you’re very unlikely to ever know and there are an infinite number of these seemingly banal yet unanswerable questions if you stop and think about it for a minute.

I recommend watching YouTube videos of cats instead.

When infotainment gets carried away with itself

During the pre-awards ceremony for the recent 2014 Golden Globe Awards show a series of “fun facts” were displayed occasionally onscreen, including this one:

Fun indeed.

Also, Adam Sandler leads the nominations for the annual Razzie Awards. His movie Grown Ups 2 earned eight Golden Raspberry nominations. This will probably be as close as he gets to an Oscar. He’s still way richer than I’ll ever be so I’m just being petty here. Mostly.

My new site: slightrewrite.com

After some very good feedback on my writing within the increasingly awkward confines of the private messaging system of Broken Forum I decided to go all out and create an entirely new forum devoted specifically for new(ish) writers to receive (and give) feedback on writing projects.

It’s called slightrewrite.com (the name was coined by kerzain, one of the members of both BF and now SR). I’d forgotten how fun it was to code basic HTML and CSS, to configure a forum and get everything working just right. And then when it doesn’t the hosting company suggests you upgrade your host package ($$$)  so you do and then hope it really runs properly.

The forum is only intended for a small group of people so I’m not looking to strike it big here. In fact that would almost certainly lead to more headaches than it would be worth, so just ignore this post, OK?

If it works for even one person (it doesn’t even have to be me) I’ll consider the endeavor worthwhile.