dangblog

Sun - December 30, 2007

Go on, get outta here

http://dangblog.wordpress.com/

"Don't do it, Danny! Don't short circuit your dangblog."

"Too late, sweetheart. Get your purple space bikini over to WordPress."

You're missing a huge party over at http://dangblog.wordpress.com/. Or maybe it's just me, humming to myself and clipping my fingernails. Whatever. The old posts will still be here for quite a while, but not me.

Posted at 08:19 PM

Sun - December 16, 2007

shonen knife is alive and well

Matching pink guitars; punk-like all-out sonic assault; happy, happy, happy. Shonen Knife makes me happy. The band is totally unpretentious when they sing about cats, food, and so on. The are exactly what they seem--fun, simple, and a great rock band. They played some of my favorites, such as "Explosion" and "Concrete Animals," plus a new tribute song to the Ramones. They played loud and fast with sweet harmonies and big smiles. Imagine a Hello Kitty doll exploding in flames.

Posted at 10:45 PM

from rio with love

So I go to the Shonen Knife show with Greta and Sandi, and Greta's friend works at Salon Dewi/Red Drawers, a block from Chop Suey (the concert venue), and Salon Dewi is having an open house and they're going to perform a Brazilian wax job on a guy in the storefront window and we have to go there before the concert. So we go into the salon and there are boys in briefs and excellent snack foods and I chat with Greta's friend who works there for a while, when I'm suddenly told I have to go back outside and watch the waxing through the front window. So I go out and look in and, with much flourish and showmanship, the wax master is about to strip the pubic hair from a handsome nude volunteer. A small crowd gathers on the sidewalk outside the salon. The wax is applied and firmly torn off. We onlookers are shown how much hair is stuck to the wax. Impressive. The volunteer grits his teeth, smiles, and grimaces throughout the process. I go in for more food. I come back out for the finish. The volunteers stands, the wax master receives applause, and the show is over. Off to the concert. Did I really just watch a guy get his pubes ripped out, I wonder? And for what? Has my life been enriched by this experience? Yes, it has. I've witnessed something completely outside my usual Ballard experience. And, although I never had any doubts about this, I'm fully cognizant of the fact that I don't ever want my hair ripped out, even by a suave expert.

Posted at 10:00 PM

Fri - December 14, 2007

Downers turned up

Life has been difficult, lately. In spite of it all, there are some happy things to consider:

Maggie now has a bed that will raise and lower at the push of button, and insurance is covering most of the cost. Meanwhile, our house helpers have turned her den-with-a-bed into a charming, even magical bedroom, with softly glowing lights, lava lamps, and other accoutrements, most of which have been around the house for years.

We have the new "Futurama" episodes from Netflix, and what else could one want?

In memory of Maggie's mother making Sputnik Christmas tree ornaments 50 years ago, we have styrofoam and toothpick Sputniks on this, the 50th anniversary year of the "little traveler," which is what the word Sputnik means. (So beatnik must mean "little beat," eh?)

I have to drive through the SLUT zone when going to work, so once in a while I catch of glimpse of the SLUT, which sort of a happy sight, I guess. That's the new South Lake Union Trolley that covers a small distance downtown and doesn't have parking at either end of it. It's a jolly red color.

Shonen Knife! Tomorrow night! Shonen Knife--best Japanese rock band of all time. Will it be the same personnel as the original band? I really don't know. But I still want to hear "Insect Collector," "Concrete Animals," and all the songs about food.

Posted at 08:40 PM

a bee bumbler and other mistakes: a rant

Despite his name, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is a bee bozo. He recently said that it's "scientifically impossible" for bumblebees to fly. Idiot! Look it up, Mike! Science has an explanation for bee flight. But this is nothing compared to his non-belief in evolution, the cornerstone of biology for the last century. Please, no more airheads in the White House.

And while we're ranting, what about the people who make the facile claim that science itself is a form of religion? They say science is faith-based because it requires faith in orderly, rational laws of nature.

Wrong. Science only assumes that the idea of cause and effect is true. And even that doesn't qualify as faith. For the sake of experiment, science assumes cause and effect is true, then goes forth and makes predictions to see how far that assumption will take us. So far this assumption has taken us a very long way--we can predict a lunar eclipse, build a computer, cure diseases, and so on. So far, science supports the idea of orderly laws of nature. This is based on the results of many, many experiments, not on faith. (Thanks to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast for explaining this so very clearly recently.)

Just as an aside, if you don’t make the assumption that A causes B, it’s hard to even have a conversation or walk down the street. As soon as you throw that out, there’s no way to judge the reality of anything, and you might as well crawl into a hole and give up.

And let's not forgot the people who love to say that quantum physics proves that our minds can influence matter, or that quantum physics supports notions like ESP. When new agers say the word "quantum physics," run the other way.

Interactions at a tiny, sub-atomic level of existence occur according the unusual laws of quantum physics, which I don’t pretend to understand. What I do know is that the strange interactions that occur in this sub-atomic realm do not occur at macroscopic sizes—the size of you and me and the objects we deal with every day. If you think it’s possible to “think” something into existence or “create your own reality” (whatever that means) by way of quantum physics, I would like to be shown that this is the consensus view of current physicists in the world today, or even a sizable minority view, or a view that's at least given respect by most physicists. If you can't show that, then why are you babbling about quantum physics in the first place?

End of rant. Please return to your previous level of vibrational energy consciousness existence-ness.

Posted at 07:01 PM

Curmudgeon: holiday music

Most despised
"Jingle Bell Rock": needs no explanation.
"Little Drummer Boy": nice music, but horrific lyrics. The story is that at the alleged birth of alleged Jesus, some people seem to know that a God-like being has been born and they want to bring gifts. Not a bad idea to get a God-like being on your side ASAP. Why are there no stories of gifts being given to the five-year-old God-like being, or the teenage pubescent God-boy, etc.? I guess those people who came to the birth forgot about Jesus' mighty status in those growing-up years. Anyway, soon after the childbirth, a kid appears with a drum, plays it for the God-baby, and the baby smiles, even though real babies don't smile until they're about one month old. God-baby does. End of song.

Better holiday song
"Fairy Tale of New York" by the Pogues.

Excerpt:

It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
And I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Posted at 07:00 PM

Fri - November 30, 2007

best thing about being over 50

Today I received some junk mail with this enticing offer on the envelope: "Free pre-paid cremation! Details inside."

Posted at 09:19 PM

Jesca Hoop

I’ve been listening to the album, Kismet, by Jesca Hoop. Her music is sort of like putting Bjork and Kate Bush in a blender and coming up with an entirely different animal. Sometimes it’s chant-like, sometimes more melodic--but even the melodic stuff takes unexpected diversions. The more I listen, the more I like it. A couple songs don’t quite work for me, but most of it sounds dang good.

Very cool Web site , by the way.

Posted at 09:15 PM

"Mr. Cockroach, I make you my zombie! Bwa ha ha!"

My friend Doug sent me a link to this article that was excerpted on Slashdot today. Holy crap. Imagine that you're an industrious little wasp that has just hunted down a big cockroach. Why go to the trouble of hauling a cockroach three times your own size back to the nest to feed the larvae? Instead, just sting its brain and zombify it. Then you can lead it back home "like a dog on a leash," making it do all the transportation work. Once the big brainless sucker is safely tucked into your lair, you lay an egg on its belly and wait for the hatchlings to eat it.

This is part two of series, "Zombies: They're Part of Nature's Perfect Plan." The first part is my 10/21/07 blog entry.

Posted at 09:10 PM

wasted newsprint

Just a quick follow-up on my previous entry. The Seattle Times removed the actual point of my letter to the editor, and then printed it, making me seem like an idiot. (That's right, even more than my usual idiocy.) The idea was to point out that Reiki and Therapeutic Touch were just as useless as the phony "energy medicine" machines in their series of articles. They removed the words "Reiki" and "Therapeutic Touch" and reworded it so that part of my letter was useless gibberish.

Why, after printing their series, would they be so spineless as to avoid a suggestion that these other "voodoo" medicines be investigated--in a letter to the editor, no less?

Posted at 08:52 PM

Thu - November 29, 2007

blaaaagh

Yes, there's a bit of a blog break going on. Events have conspired to turn my world sideways: an entire week of dishes unwashed; significant sleep loss; a confused cat; a house in shambles; and a long suffering spouse gets a bed that can raise up and down with a push button.

A preview of coming attractions: I should have an article in the upcoming issue of the local magazine, On Screen. I interviewed the makers of the film, Blood on the Flat Track: the Rise of the Rat City Roller Girls. Also--though not as fascinating--I think The Seattle Times will print yet another one of my letters to the editor this weekend. Not sure yet. I praised them for their series of articles exposing some con artists for selling "energy medicine" machines that do nothing but drain money and misdirect hope. And I suggested that they go after the Reiki and Therapeutic Touch people next. If a seriously ill person decides to spend time and/or money on these things instead of actual treatment, we have a tragedy, dear friends. We have negligence.

I gotta go.

Posted at 10:44 PM

Thu - November 22, 2007

slimy slugs at slothful seacompression

Posted at 11:44 PM

Fri - November 16, 2007

don't take a name in vain

I've always been proud of Maggie for her desire to keep her last name when we were married. Taking the husband's name, she says, is a holdover from when the woman was considered the man's property. I've read a couple commentaries in the last year that said it very well:

These are excerpts from Salon's advice columnist, Cary Tennis, speaking to someone who was trying to decide whether to keep her name:

"Feminism made it possible for women to declare themselves as exactly who they are. And I suppose it could be said that for all its gains, if women now slip back into the old, comfortable models, then to that extent the historical memory of feminism slips away. Refusing to take the old patriarchal name is a way of extending a certain idea of freedom into the future and into future generations. It is a powerful step. It is a reminder.

"That way, when your kids say, Why do you have a different name from Daddy? you can tell them that there was a time when women were not free to choose what name to take, when women basically belonged to the man they married, when they had to obey him and, in fact, had to obey pretty much any man they saw on the street, whoever he may be, just because he was a man, much the same way that there was a time that black people belonged to white people and had to obey pretty much any white person at all, and could not choose their own names, but were given the names of the white people they belonged to."

This from author and columnist, Marilyn vos Savant, speaking to someone who didn't change her name and received flack from relatives:

"Tell them you’re in the vanguard of a social revolution that someday will better the lives of all women. Men have long had the psychological advantage of unbroken identities. By contrast, women usually change their surnames when they get married. This practice deals a subtle—yet tremendous— blow to their sense of self. And even when women do keep their names, they seldom pass them on to their daughters. So the female heritage disappears.

'When enough women keep their surnames throughout life and pass them on to their daughters for life, we will witness an improvement in the stature and independence of women the likes of which has not been seen since women got the vote."

Posted at 10:31 PM

Sun - November 11, 2007

unicorns and rainbows

This photo was printed on edible paper with edible ink. While attending the preciously named "Unicorns and Rainbows" Seacompression event, I visited a tent that offered self-consumption. Inside, a photographer told me to choose what part of me I wanted to eat, and of course I chose brains. He was happy to oblige with this image. I didn't eat it, though. Maybe that was because I had previously eaten a pancake at the pancake serving station. I did nibble on the edge of the photo, however, and found it taste-free.

I invite you to eat the photo, but please turn off/unplug your viewing device first. If there is glass in your view screen, grind it into small pieces between your teeth before swallowing. I got that advice from a man who ate light bulbs, or at least claimed he did. Shot glasses, too. I met this man more than 20 years ago, in Eugene, Oregon, but I never forgot his advice. You're going to cut your innards unless you grind the glass into a small, granular chunks. That's probably hard on the teeth, but dang, there's a price to be paid if you want to be a glass eater.

Posted at 07:32 PM

Wed - November 7, 2007

on screen

Animal Panic
In the health club where I work out, the TVs have recently been tuned to the Animal Planet channel. Being uncabled, I’d never seen it before, and if you haven't either, here’s a summary: “Look at that snake! Look at it! Look at it! Look at it! It’s beautiful! What a beast! My God! My heart is pounding! I can feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins! I’ve never been this close to such an animal before. Look at it!”

The Best Years of Our Lives
Maggie unerringly picked another winner, and captured this 1946 classic on tape from a recent broadcast. No wonder this movie appears on "best movies of all time" lists (it's #37 on the AFI 100). This excellent film is about World War II veterans adjusting to civilian life. It’s not what you might expect—it’s not a cheering, super-patriotic film and it’s not a maudlin fluffy film. It’s a moving, realistic look at human beings trying to regain a grip on life after a war. It’s also a love story, or multiple love stories. It’s also a window into the social and political concerns of the post-war years. It works on most every level.

Posted at 08:47 PM

Sun - November 4, 2007

bloggy escape

I'm looking for a relatively painless way to export this entire blog to a Web-based blog system. Wish me luck and send suggestions. There is (or was) a software program called Agitprop to assist with this process but it seems to have vanished. I may have to train a chimpanzee to cut and paste each blog entry since 2003, one at a time, but that would be cruel. The monkey is me.

Posted at 12:38 PM

choose your universe

I was listening to a man named Eddie Tabash on the Point of Inquiry podcast and he brought up an interesting question. This is a strictly a hypothetical, fantasy, "what if" question for religious believers.

Suppose you had to choose between 1) living in a universe that includes the existence of God but no has no afterlife, and 2) living a universe that has no God but when you die you go to a happy afterlife. If taken seriously, the question may require believers to carefully evaluate their allegiance to the Almighty.

Posted at 12:11 PM

Sun - October 28, 2007

the smart prize

I was listening to the Skepticalit y podcast recently and the subject was what skeptics (or the skeptic movement, if there is such a thing) ought to be engaged in. Wasn't it getting a little old--explaining for the 10,000th time that Bigfoot most likely doesn't exist, or that the evidence for alien-piloted saucers is just about zero? The speaker pointed out that skepticism is often a consumer protection effort--especially when exposing scams like homeopathy. That's a worthy cause, and so is teaching people critical thinking skills in general.

So here's my idea to liven up the field a little. I think we should emulate the X Prize Foundation. There's a big cash prize available for someone who can develop a clean, super-efficient car that people will really want to buy. There's a lunar lander development prize, a genome sequencing prize, and so on. Lots of similar prize systems exist. I propose an "S Prize" or "Smart Prize" for whoever comes up with the best way to shrink or marginalize belief in astrology, homeopathy, or some other wacky idea that's infected the public consciousness. For example, the Flying Spaghetti Monster was a mighty blow against the anti-evolution forces. Maybe a clever public awareness campaign could help put homeopathy in its rightful place.

We don't have piles of cash to give away, but maybe another enticement could be found. An all-expense paid trip to The Amazing Meeting, for example, or to the Ig Noble ceremonies. Or maybe just fame and admiration would be enough.

Posted at 08:33 PM

halloween horror in the usa

President Awful and VP Bloodstain--what they may do before leaving office is terrible to contemplate. Attacking Iran seems like a given, though I hope I'm wrong. What other hellish legacy might they have in mind? A glorious apocalypse? Equally scary is the helpless feeling that we can't do anything about it. Congress and the Supreme Court either support the crazies in charge, or are too confused and cowardly to do anything. As Mr. B. Dylan said, "A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom." We have very few heroes in Washington. I'm open to heroic ideas for citizens. Anyone have any heroic ideas?

Posted at 08:32 PM

Sun - October 21, 2007

the dance of the undead at the fremont zombie walk

Go ahead, look at all the zombies. But don't take a picture of them.

Posted at 08:33 PM

this is me, sitting in my theater seat

Maggie's birthday wish was granted and with teamwork we were able to get her to the Paramount to see "Spamalot." It's a good show. Any performance with catapulted cows is worth it. But we were wondering about the audience members who take photos of each other sitting in their seats. It was a widespread practice. What the heck?

Person 1. "Hey, look at this picture! It's me waiting for a show to start."
Person 2. "No way! You're actually sitting in a theater seat. You look so ready to see a performance."

or

Person 1. "Hey, look at this. Remember when we were sitting in the audience, waiting for "Spamalot"?
Person 2. "That picture is so much better than the one of us waiting for the Ozzfest to start."
Me: "Look at this shot I got of the parking spot I found downtown. Remember, it was just three blocks from the theater?"

I've been reading SF author Charlie Stross. He's pretty sure that in the near future we'll be able to record everything we do, from birth to death. Or from birth to transhuman transmogrification and beyond. The "life log." Memory will be cheap as dirt and equally ubiquitous. I guess this theater seat photography is just a step in that direction.

Person 1. "Here's a record of my entire biological life on a disk. Pay careful attention to my 36th year, February 14. That was a good one. "
Person 2. "Dude, I'll play it at 100X. If it's really good, I'll copy myself and have my copy live your whole life as if it was you.
Person 1. "Yeah. Then merge with the copy and you'll totally understand where I'm coming from."

Posted at 12:16 PM

evolution-like systems

This one of the most interesting articles I've come across in a while. I think the link was posted on Slashdot. The author says that a good way to get people to understand how evolution and natural selection work is to use examples such as Wikipedia, prediction markets, and online music and book recommendation systems. Worth reading, I think.

I didn't know what a prediction market was, but now I'm fascinated. Also, at work these days, part of my job is "makin' Wiki." We're going to create an intranet using Wiki Media software so I'm digging into the wacky workings of Wiki.

Posted at 12:07 PM

Tue - October 16, 2007

rotifer

I'm sorry I can't remember where I found this rotifer photo and who made it. I've learned that our rotifer friends are microscopic animals made up of less than 1,000 cells. Maybe 15 of those comprise the brain and nerves. Notice the light-sensitive red spot "eyes." Rotifers can exist in a state of suspension for possibly hundreds of years in a dehydrated or frozen state, then return to life when conditions are more wet and friendly. Rotifers are our pals. You can swim with them in a pond or stream, but you won't see them.

Posted at 08:38 PM

Mon - October 15, 2007

current events that could have been in science fiction novels I read in high school

Four terabytes on a single hard-drive coming soon. That's 4,000 gigabytes. This wouldn't have meant anything to the younger me in pre-desktop computing days, but considered in terms of the current Library of Congress (70 terabytes of data), then 4TB is a lot of information. The entire Library of Congress in about 15 little disks--that would have seemed like way-future tech. And even this 4T will be laughable soon.

Australia plagued by feral pigs. The article says there are more wild pigs than people Down Under. Twenty-three million. Causing big trouble. Well, if radioactivity was involved, it would be classic old SF.

Pentagon urges space-based solar power generation for earth. It's an old idea, but now there's a real plan. I recommend the short video demo, with its easy-listening music and the images of ring-shaped space power beaming down to earth with a "whup, whup, whup" sound. Caution: do not fly kites in the beam area.

Finally, I could have read stories about the Arctic melting away and it would have seemed like the far, far future, but now it's happening right before my eyes.

Posted at 09:02 PM

Sun - October 14, 2007

A Wink and a Smile

Our friend Deirdre is directing a full-length feature film, A Wink and a Smile. It's a documentary that follows ten women as they learn the art of burlesque at Seattle's Academy of Burlesque. Check out the "teaser" for the film in progress at the link in the first sentence. This is a fantastic idea for a movie, what with the resurgence of interest in burlesque and the natural draw of sexual content. There's bound to be an audience for this, and I know for a fact that Deirdre and her camera operator/DP, Peter, are extremely talented. (I'm sure the rest of her crew is of equal caliber.)

Deirdre and Peter are, of course, already famous. They will always be remembered for The Way of the Nashwan, the greatest film ever made about the incredible spiritual master who is adored and worshipped across the globe. Praise him! Love him! Then go spread the word about "A Wink and a Smile."

Posted at 08:59 PM

Sun - October 7, 2007

two amazing movies

Across the Universe

Go for the visuals and music, not for what there is of a story. There's a smorgasbord of colors and psychedelia to be had here. I know that reviews have been pretty mixed on this...I think a lot depends on your expectations. If you want to be washed over with amazing images and lovely music, then I think you'd like it. The setting is the U.S. and England in the 1960s, but in a kind of alternate musical universe where people frequently communicate by singing Beatles songs to each other. The all-Beatles musical score is skillfully and endearingly performed. There are characters based vaguely on Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, but they don't come to a tragic end in this world. There is a cartoonish scene that's an evocation of Ken Kesey and the pranksters being turned away by the Tim Leary crowd, and a different version of the famous Beatles rooftop concert, and so on with other analogies. As far as I can tell, the film really has nothing serious to say about the era or about love. For me it was 2 hours and 15 minutes of fun pictures and sound. The "plot" just strings the pieces together.

Woman in the Moon

Maggie picks out another great one on Netflix. For me, this silent Fritz Lang film from 1931 was entertaining for its full 2 1/2 hour running time. It's got romance, criminal masterminds, a wild-haired professor with a pet rat, and a trip to the moon. I don't know why this isn't more widely talked about. Lang took the very latest advances in knowledge regarding rocket science and applied it in the movie; the result is that in some ways it's more believable than the crappy SF films of the 50s. (Except, of course, when they get to the moon, find a breathable atmosphere, and the scientist pulls out a divining rod to look for water!) One thing I loved about this film is that the woman was given a strong, forceful character. Unlike 50s American SF, she doesn't serve coffee to the astronauts. She shoots movie film of the lunar surface and develops it in the ship's lab. She fends off a bad guy by using her own arm as a bolt to hold a door closed. And she makes a bold romantic decision, which I won't reveal.

Posted at 02:10 PM

kelly in wired online

From an art car fest in San Francisco:
Kelly and L.B.
Leopard Bernstein

Posted at 12:26 PM

Tue - October 2, 2007

Monster Month Blog

The famous Professor Ichbonnsen is presenting a monster for each day of October, including species never before revealed to the world. Because I'm out of my depth on this subject, I called a world-renowned crypto-hystericalogist at the University of Washington, Franziska Angst. I asked her opinion of this startling new exhibit.

"I vill be honest with you," said Dr. Angst. "Zis thing, it scares ze crap out of me. And vunce ze crap iz gone, vat iz left but ze art?" She screamed and hung up the phone.

Posted at 10:20 PM

Sun - September 30, 2007

night of the hideous yowling destructo-mammal

It's not my story. It's Scot's. He doesn't have a blog so I'll tell it, and I'll probably miss some important parts and maybe get something wrong or out of order, but here's what happened as I understand it:

After watching a horror movie at a theater, Scot came home and entered his house. His cat is there, looking very anxious. From inside the house comes a ghastly shrieking howl; part-animal, part-banshee. This is followed by a loud crash of breaking glass as the sliding glass door in the back of his house shatters. Alex, the cat, freaks out and runs full bore into an unbroken part of the glass door and bounces off. He disappears into the shadows.

What the hell happened? It's elementary, my dear Watson. When Scot is out, he leaves a window open a cat's width for Alex to come into the house. The window is several feet off the ground. While at the movies, a raccoon entered through the window, scarfed cat food, and maybe was casing out the rest of the house when Scot walked in. The coon, scared by the sudden appearance of Scot, bolted for what looked like the outdoors but he was unfamiliar with the concept of glass. His thick skull smashed through the glass door and he escaped. No blood was found. Maybe the animal went to a local emergency room with a concussion. Alex, terrified by both raccoon and window crash, did exactly the same thing as the raccoon, only he was too small to break a window. He was found the next day; uninjured, but a little reluctant to come home.

No raccoon was actually ever spotted in this incident, but a previous raccoon invasion made one these bandits the most likely suspect.

Posted at 05:52 PM

The Kite Runner - movie version

I had an opportunity to see a sneak preview of this at SIFF recently. Pretty good because it's a pretty good story. In some ways improves upon the book, in other ways, no. Sure, it's Hollywood-ified: starts with kites, ends with kites, includes some smarmy music in between as it dutifully takes you through the plot points. But it's well told and well acted. It's a well-crafted visualization of the book, not a work of art in its own right. It stayed true to the story, and worked as a tear-jerker. The father was very well cast and excellent. And, thank goodness, they didn't take an American star actor and try to make him an Afghan.

Posted at 05:18 PM

"fetal horses, for example, may gallop in the womb"

unlikely ways to go

movie dialog art

Burnt Out and moon-mined

a sight for sore eyes

Godwin's Law

says who, madam?

a new challenge for psychics and aliens

Amy Winehouse

it could happen to you

the big picture