Social Hygiene: In a Dark Time...

I'm enjoying Loren Webster's contemplation of the Tao te Ching in a number of works.

Before any sort of notion of "vendor relationship management," however technologically-enabled and buzzword-compliant, can have any beneficial effect, we, as individuals, must first understand our relationship with ourselves and with things. Which means we must pay attention to those matters.

But who is competing for our attention? Who do we surrender it to?

That's right.

Starting to connect the dots?

Beware of Ideologues

To some extent, I'm generally sympathetic to the goals of Greenpeace; but when they behave stupidly, they quickly exhaust that supply of goodwill.

Apparently starved for attention, they've recently taken on tech companies, most notably Apple, for their use of chemicals in electronics. This generates the predictable buzz from the tech-heads, and gets Greenpeace some quantity of Google-juice. I really don't care about that one way or another, mostly I think it's just attention-seeking behavior.

But ideologues are generally morons. They are so consumed by their sense of righteousness that they usually end up doing far more damage than the thing they oppose. Case in point, Greenpeace ranking electronics companies and how "green" they are, by their use of chemicals and product recycling.

In this case, Nintendo scored zero points, while both Microsoft and Sony come in ahead of Nintendo.

This is pretty narrow thinking in terms of the environment. While I'm no advocate of toxic chemicals in consumer products, there are far more environmental dimensions to consumer electronics than simply toxics and recycling. For instance, the Nintendo Wii consumes one tenth of the electricity of both the Microsoft XBox 360 and the Playstation 3. This would seem to be an environmental advantage, would it not? Since these things are fairly well known consumer electronic devices, I suspect it is not lost on Greenpeace which console is the smallest and lightest, and therefore likely has the lowest cost of manufacturing in terms of energy requirements and use of non-renewable resources for production, to say nothing of the least amount of chemicals and water used in production. It also seems to enjoy the least amount of packaging required, so less waste there; as well as the lowest cost of transport to market, further reducing its total consumption of energy resources. In addition, the Wii employs a style of gameplay that is more physical than that of Microsoft or Sony, which seems to afford some health benefits to its users. And finally, the Wii doesn't seem to attract the numbers of violent games that Microsoft and Sony seem to attract, which may have some "environmental" benefits in terms of our social environment.

Beware of ideologues. They're usually far more hazardous than the thing they're trying to save you from.

Competing Messages: Seek Help

"Don't anthropomorphize computers. They hate that."

That's a witty little quip I often see attached as a tag-line to e-mail signatures or blog comments. It's also kind of appropriate to today's brief little meditation.

Robert Scoble had a problem with his Mac. You can read about the problem and his public reaction to it here. It seems to me that perhaps Robert has more problems than just a flaky install.

Recovering his composure somewhat, Robert attempts to justify his conduct in another post, where he talks about something he calls "the brand promise of Apple." Unfortunately, though unsurprisingly, he never actually articulates what "the brand promise of Apple" really is. He enumerates a number of sarcastic comments in Update 2 toward the end of the post, so it seems the "promise" is really just a device of Robert's creation, and not something he's positing as a creation of Apple. But I could be wrong, I really have no clear idea what Robert's talking about, other than he's unhappy.

At one point, Robert asserts, "We believe Apple’s marketing so deeply that we aren’t willing to question it."

To which I reply, "Who is this 'we' you're talking about, Kemo Sabe?"

This is just screwy. I don't know anyone who truly "believes" Apple's "marketing." It's not meant to be "believed" anyway, it's meant to be "felt." The Mac and PC commercials use humor to try to make people feel good about Macs, and it plays on the feelings of frustration of many PC users. For the most part, it works. A guy I work with who would never touch a Mac just got an HP laptop with Vista installed came into work and said "You know that Mac commercial with PC and the security guy with the dark glasses? It's just like that." And he wasn't angry about either the commercial or Vista, just commenting that the commercial actually reflected something of the user experience with Vista.

Yet to weigh in on this nonsense is Doc Searls, champion of something he calls "vendor relationship management." Perhaps he can start a career in something called "vendor relationship therapy" and bring Robert onboard as his first client. Clearly, Robert needs help.

Part of the problem is the way we've anthropomorphized corporations in our legal system and our belief system. I think it's something of a crutch in the legal system. It's just easier to think of corporations as individual human "entities" than it is to actually think through the complexities of how to to treat groups of people and organizational structures that don't resemble actual "persons" in any meaningful way, and often outlast even the longest human lifetimes.

For my own purposes (i.e. to retain some sense of sanity), I don't regard corporations as individuals. They don't make "promises," they offer "contracts." We don't have "relationships," we have "transactions." We don't have mutual expectations of "loyalty." They provide a "product" or a "service," for which I pay a fee, not an "experience." Experiences belong to me. Whether they are good, bad or indifferent is a function of the product or service, and what kind of mood I'm in that day. When my computer doesn't work right, I don't "blame" Apple, nor do I "blame" myself. I try to fix the problem, work around it, or ignore it. Sometimes I still get angry, but that's my problem, not the manufacturer's.

Ironically, the complaint Robert has with legions of rabid "fanboys" harassing him in the comments for his posts is just a different manifestation of the same problem. Not necessarily one of anthropomorphizing a corporation, but one of regarding a company and a product as something other than a corporation and an artifact, as an object of affection or admiration far out of proportion to its intrinsic utility, to the extent that some people will assert that their "life/work/existence revolve around" their Macs. That's kind of sad, I think.

Apple doesn't require legions of "fanboys" to defend it. Its success in the marketplace doesn't depend on the senseless arguments of people with too much time on their hands and no good idea about what to do with it. Many of these people "love" Apple or their Macs, and I suppose reasonable people can disagree about how appropriate it may be to have that sort of affection for a corporation or a product. I confess that I have a certain reservoir of affection for both Apple and my Macs, but not to the extent that I feel the need to rush to their defense in the ongoing commercial "conversation" of the marketplace. Doc Searls once "prophesied," "Love is the ultimate lock-in." Well, be careful what you wish for, especially when that "love" is an adolescent, possessive, jealous love.

I love my family, my dog, my friends, and I try to love my neighbors. I really like my Mac, my Kodak cameras and my plasma TV. I think I understand the difference. It's not clear to me that Robert does, or the fanboys. Or Doc either, for that matter.

I'm sorry Robert had a bad experience updating the operating system on his 17" MacBook Pro. But I think his posts suggest that he has bigger problems with the operating system between his ears than he does with the one in his computer. I think his time would be better spent debugging that, than posting angry rants about supposed "brand promises." He can always buy another computer, or beg some vendor to give him one in return for the attention; but he's stuck with the one between his ears, and he's the only one who can fix it, and there's no one else to "blame" for that.

Cheese Sandwich: Is it winter already?

The temperature widget said it was 34 degrees this morning. Yikes! I actually turned the heat on. Tile floors get really cold!

Haven't been blogging much, I've got a lot on my plate at the moment. But Bodhi and I are still here, we haven't gone anywhere.

Mac: 10.5.1

Installed 10.5.1.

No drama.

Life goes on.

Competing Messages: "Put down the koolaid..."

Dave Winer offered a brief three-paragraph post that has garnered some interest as being "perceptive." The relevant quotation is contained in the second paragraph:

Advertising will get more and more targeted until it disappears, because perfectly targeted advertising is just information.

Now, I have some trouble parsing this sentence. I don't know what he means by "targeted" in this case. I suspect he means that one would receive only information that is relevant to the receiver in both content and timing. This seems to imply a demand-driven information scheme. That is, I only receive information when I specifically ask for, or "demand" it, and the information I receive is specifically related to the subject of my query or demand.

This seems to imply that the competitive nature of the marketplace is going to be subordinated to the desires of the "consumers." That is to say, somehow competitors in the marketplace will either choose, or be compelled, to respect the time, wishes and attention of consumers. I don't think there's any way we'll have a "competitive" marketplace if that were ever to be the case. That's not a free market if competitors are compelled to only offer information in response to a specific demand, and I don't think there's any way a competitor would surrender a relative advantage by "choosing" to respect the time wishes and attention of consumers. So, I think the first part of this notion relies on a conception of a marketplace that is totally alien to anything we presently have, and essentially meaningless in any current conception of what a marketplace is.

But there's more. "Advertising," whether it's "perfectly targeted" or not, isn't "just information." It's about compliance. The message sender has a desired outcome, an intention behind the message, and the message is constructed in such a way as to maximize the potential that you'll comply with the message. Again, Winer seems to presume a world where, in response to a query about personal music players, only the vendors one queried would reply with something like a spec sheet. A limited list of "facts" which contained no emotional context. Again, I can't see a competitor in the marketplace voluntarily constraining themselves to purely "informational" advertising. Otherwise, if the competitor isn't constrained to purely "informational" message, it's not "just information." It's a head game, and that's what advertising always is, because it's about compliance.

So I fail to understand what's so "perceptive" about this comment. To the contrary, I believe it reveals a relatively naive absence of insight about the nature of advertising or markets. Competition is the compelling dynamic. If you wanted to run a Soviet-style command economy, I think one could approximate the situation Winer describes; but I don't think anyone is seriously contemplating that, and nothing less than that would yield the presumed "ideal" of advertising being "just information."

I'm not particularly surprised at the comment or the seemingly favorable attention it's received. It's kind of like fish talking about water. We're surrounded by compliance messages offered by competing entities every minute of every day, and we're mostly completely unaware of them. Probably couldn't run any sort of civilization without them, so it's not like they're "evil." We just don't have much insight into them. Often, and increasingly so, to our regret.

The "Cluetrain" is a myth.

Cheese Sandwich: LAX2JAX

Another lame title I couldn't pass up.

It's great to be back! My neighbor dropped Bodhi back at Action Dave's before she left for work, so my best friend was here to greet me when I arrived. Always nice to see a friendly face when you get home. Of course, it's about as cold here as it was in Oxnard, but what can you do? At least it's sunny, sunny, sunny!

Took Bodhi for a walk, then had a shower and did some work-related admin. Made myself an omelet then repaired to the couch. It didn't take long before I surrendered and just crawled into bed. A four-hour nap later and I'm feeling pretty good. I've got a nice long weekend to get back into my usual routine, which mostly means walking my ass off again. But I want to get this place straightened up, and I think I'm going to go buy some paint too.

I ordered my stuffed woodchucks for Groundhog Day. I ordered three this year. This little guy is new. This guy and this guy were featured last year. They'll be given away to guests. I probably should get one as a regular mascot. If you're given to buying plush groundhogs, it's possible that these are available elsewhere for less money, I didn't do any competitive shopping.

All things considered, the trip wasn't a bust. I've got some new people to work for, and it was both pleasant and useful to meet them face to face; and the scope of my responsibilities has been expanded significantly, which should keep me entertained for a while longer. But I do wish I'd managed to make the time to get a shot of the sun setting over the Pacific. I'm sure I'll be out there again before too long. Better luck next time.

Anyway, on with the weekend!

Cheese Sandwich: Gratuitous Posting

I'm tired and bored and I've got another hour or so before they begin boarding, so this post is just to kind of pass the time.

I found a seat near an outlet and plugged the MacBook into the LAX grid and figured I'd get a few pennies back in electricity from the exorbitant prices they charge for nearly everything in here. Choosing a little passive entertainment, I decided to watch the first episode from the first season of Battlestar Galactica, 33.

I love that episode for so many reasons. I loved the continuity with the mini-series (the bruise on the XO's cheek), the mystery around the Cylons' repeated appearance every 33 minutes, the stress on the ships and the crews, especially the leadership, the impossible decisions they had to confront. There's even a little humor with Dr. Baltar. It's a great episode. Plus lots of close-ups of Mary McDonnell, who gives an outstanding performance. Sigh.

Then there were the little details like the picture on the bulkhead of the ready-room, and the 9/11 inspired pictures of the missing on the bulkheads of a passageway. And Roslin's fixation on "the count," the number of survivors in the fleet.

It was the first of many outstanding episodes, and it met the high bar set by the mini-series. I'm looking forward to the series return next year.

Cheese Sandwich: LAX Departure

Well, no sunset. I had duty driver again last night, and my compatriots wanted to go eat. I had to drive to LA today, and I figured finding my way here took precedence over the picture. So, maybe next time.

We ended up at a Chinese restaurant after our initial plans went awry, but it turned out to be a fortuitous turn of events. We had our doubts initially, because it seemed to take forever before we were waited on. But our server turned out to be an older Chinese woman with a mischievous sense of humor. She was quite the trip. One of my party asked for a domestic beer and she recommended the Chinese brand. He declined, but I accepted the offer, so that established the dynamic for the rest of the evening. It was a good beer too! The food was excellent, and we had a very nice time.

I made it to LAX and the rental car return without incident. Traffic on 405 was pretty much a parking lot, but I had plenty of time so it was relatively stress free. What really made me happy was I found the Hertz place with no trouble. When I flew out of San Diego I had a hell of a time finding the rental car return, so I was kind of high-fiving myself when I spotted the Hertz sign. Alas, another one of those silly, trivial moments of joy, and no one to share it with. Of course, in another life I would have been grateful to be alone, because had I not found it the first time, I would have been made to suffer for it. So I guess you take the good with the not so good. Or something like that. Anyway, I'm here.

I signed up for a 24-hour pass on T-mobile. I've got three hours to kill and hopefully I'll find an outlet to keep the MacBook running. I'm good for a couple of hours on battery anyway, so it was cheaper than the six-dollars-an-hour option.

With that, I'm going to catch up on the news, the feeds, and some e-mail. Hopefully the next time I'm posting, I'll be back on the right coast, in the company of a certain canine companion I miss terribly.

Cheese Omelet: SITREP

If I thought I was going to get a shot of the sunset on Monday, my stomach had other ideas. Getting something to eat after a long day and a short run seemed more urgent than finding the ocean, which isn't very far from here. So instead of the sun setting over the Pacific, I had the three fish tacos special. Um, not recommended.

The meeting has been going well. I actually had a seat at the table, normally I'm a peanut gallery type of guy. Probably influences my perception of the meeting going well. And it looks like things will be changing enough to make them interesting for me again.

We had a social event last night that followed immediately after the meeting, so no sunset last night either. Perhaps tonight. The social was nice. The food was good, the beer was good. Had some interesting conversations.

I mentioned the other day that I was in the Comfort Inn, it's really the Hampton. As if anyone could tell the difference. There's a complimentary breakfast that's worth about what you pay for it. I was enjoying my egg-like protein patty, along with my sausage-like protein patty, and trying to listen to the news while one of the borg communicated with the hive-mind via his bluetooth headset. I tried to think compassionate thoughts while my lizard brain was thinking, "Moron!" But hey, "business is conversations," right?

I checked MacSurfer for the Mac-related news and was surprised to see my Still Liking Leopard post linked there. I feel a little A-listy this morning. Alas, all glory is fleeting, and I will retreat to the comfort of relative obscurity in fairly short order. (I'm pretty sure it was the Princess Bride quote that put me over the top.)

Anyway, it's on with the day.

Competing Messages: In Your Face(book)

Sorry for the lame title. It seems Facebook's big play for getting rich is, wait for it... advertising. And not just any old form of advertising, conversational advertising. Yes, the Cluetrain stops in walled gardens. Naturally, the manifesto authors look on fondly, because buying and selling stuff is the essential existential act, and anything that facilitates that is so life-affirming.

Normally, this would require me to write something cynically downbeat, but not today. That's because Nick Carr has already done so, far better than I probably could have. So I commend his commentary to you, in what is probably viewed by some as an act of "conversational marketing."

I think I'll go wash my hands.

Music: Speaking of Cool Cats

Check out this clip of Kitty's Back in Town...

Mac: Still Liking Leopard

Before getting to the subject of this evening's little rant, I wish to note that I've managed to achieve a somewhat more comfortable typing position by using this piece of bench-like furniture at the foot of my bed as the seat for the desk. Not ideal, but much better.

Anyway, the Mac has been my choice of computing platform since about 1994. Prior to that I'd been on a series of Apple II computers, ending up on a IIgs that I'd tricked out pretty nicely. Which is simply to say that I've never been a Wintel user by choice. The Navy makes me use that platform exclusively, so I'm quite familiar with it.

Frankly, I was always one who kind of enjoyed the relative obscurity and unpopularity of the Mac. I went through my fanboy period, where I would get into long and pointless arguments with Wintel users, but I've largely outgrown that by now. When Apple started becoming popular again, I was pleased. At first. Now we're well into the "backlash" phase, and it's getting old.

Most of it is projection. People working out their various psychological issues on a corporation as though it were a spouse, significant other, or parent. Someone who "owes" you something. Respect, reciprocal "loyalty," a duty to remain the same or "true" to you. It's all bullshit. It's just corporation. Apple does some things better than any other computer company, it does many things about the same, and it probably does a few things worse. If you're looking for it to be an idealized parent/partner/spouse, well, "Get used to disappointment."

Or just go back to using Windows. Or switch to something else. Really. Who's stopping you? Life's too short to stick with an OS that's making you unhappy. Move on.

Leopard has been no more problematic for me than any other .n update on OS X. That is to say, not everything seems to work exactly as advertised, or I haven't figured out how to make it work yet. "Back to my Mac" doesn't seem to be working for me just now, but maybe I didn't set something up right before I left. But lots of things are working better for me, and I like cover flow in the Finder. I love Quick Look. I like playing with the backgrounds in iChat. And it's fun poking around to see what's new that isn't one of the 300 new features. And there are a few things that are like that. And there are the occasional glitches. Like that never happened in Tiger, or any flavor of Windows, right?

Something on the order of 40,000 people die in automobile accidents every year. To date, I don't think Leopard has killed anyone. Think there are any bugs in the transportation system? Going to stop driving? I didn't think so.

I'm tired of the whiners. Especially preachy whiners who make shitty software, who remind us that "it's even worse than it appears," and we're all a bunch of barking, farting chihuahuas. What about "remember to have fun?"

The Mac and Leopard aren't the second coming of Jesus Christ, which AKMA didn't seem to wish to touch on in his recent, and otherwise interesting and worthwhile, religion and technology piece. It's unfortunate that the hype seems to go that way. It's just software. If your "life/work/existence" revolve around your Mac, you have more serious problems than a few bugs in a new OS release.

Lest I be accused again of being a "bitter, bitter man," simply recall that I am no one of consequence.

We're livin' in the future and none of this has happened yet.

Cheese Sandwich: Hotel California

I made it. Flight was uneventful, if a little delayed. We didn't have a full plane, so the middle seat was open, which was nice. I brought along Daniel Goleman's Social Intelligence. One good thing about these trips is that there are few distractions, so I can get some reading done. I've been wanting to read this book for some time, so I hope to finish it before I head back to Florida.

Perhaps it's something metaphysical, that we manifest into our lives the things we have negative thoughts about, but California was cold and cloudy when I landed. It cleared a bit on the drive to Oxnard, but when I arrived it was cloudy here too. The sun has just broken out, so I'm kind of planning to make a run for the ocean before sunset. As these things seem to go, it may be my only chance! It's still chilly, at 57 degrees F, but then I'm about 240 miles north of Jacksonville, in addition to being about 3,000 miles west.

I'm at the Hampton Inn at Channel Island Harbor. It's a nice enough motel, but if I come out this way again, I won't stay here. There's nothing to do within walking distance unless you want to just look at boats. Though I may take some pictures of those. It's all condos. At least, that's according to the desk. I may take a walk around and see if I can't find someplace to eat anyway. The motel doesn't have a restaurant or bar either. Like I said, no distractions!

They have a small fitness center here, but the treadmill sucks. Again, perhaps a result of my negative thoughts, or maybe the Comfort Inn is just cheap. I ran about two and a half miles on it before it just drove me nuts and I had to quit. One of the nice things about my condo is that we have pretty good equipment in the fitness center. Not that anyone wants to spend any money on maintaining it!

While I'm bitching about the motel, allow me to note that these little desks they offer are nice, but what's with the chairs? You can't adjust the height on these things! Well, correction, you can, but there's no way to make these chairs high enough to type comfortably. They do give you a nice lap desk though, which is thoughtful. If I could type with the laptop on my lap! That's even worse than this configuration. I only mention this because it seems to be a consistent theme across all the motels I've stayed in the last few months. I stayed in two on the road trip to New York in July, one in October for John's wedding (I still owe you $110.00, Mark!), and this one. All of them offered desks with chairs that sit barely a foot off the floor.

And let me note that I forgot my Logitech mm50 speakers, which I normally pack to allow me to fall asleep and wake to music. I know, I'm such a baby.

So, all in all, I'm okay. Crabby as usual, but I hate being away from home. The loneliest moments I've had the last several months all came at the airport as I was getting ready to leave. I miss Bodhi horribly. He's the only one who said goodbye to me; and chances are even he isn't missing me as he's getting to stay with Tucker this week (my neighbor's Chow-mix), so he has someone to play with even during the day! I actually text messaged my daughters to tell them I loved them before I had to turn off the cell, something I don't tell Melissa often enough. Not sure it made me feel any better, but I had a nice text back from Caitie when I turned the phone back on, and Mel called me after she got off work and we had a nice chat.

So, I hope to take a few pictures, read a book, maybe write down a few thoughts that have been rattling around in my head for the last few months. I'll get to see the folks I work with in person, I normally only interact with them by phone and e-mail. Hopefully I'll be able to kind of make a few changes in the nature of my responsibilities. I'm getting a little bored at work, though I'm rather fond of the paycheck. We'll see. If I get a decent sunset and make it home safely, we'll call it a win.

Now to go see about some supper. It's 7:20 by my stomach, and I haven't had lunch yet.

Cheese Omelet: Omelet

I'm something of a lazy man, so when I find something I like, I pretty much stick with it rather than try something else. This isn't a virtue, it's just a fact.

For breakfast, I like to make a two-egg ham and cheese omelet. The cheese is usually Land O'Lakes Sharp American, and the ham is usually Boar's Head Tavern Ham. Sometimes I experiment with the cheese, I tried a Sargento cheddar with chipotle peppers last week. Not bad, but not great. Pepperjack cheese is better.

Anyway, I was out of ham this morning and I wanted something other than a plain cheese omelet. I've used salsa before to good effect, but I had some Newman's Own Black Bean and Corn salsa in the fridge and I figured I'd give that a try.

I'm happy to report that it's very, very good. Much better than an ordinary salsa. Maybe good enough to become the default choice in lieu of ham. It is a bit harder to assemble, as it's more fluid than ham which makes turning the omelet something of a challenge. But it has a nice combination of flavors, textures and thicker consistency than ordinary salsa to make it relatively easy to use as a filling.

I think I'll warm the salsa in the microwave a bit before putting it in the omelet next time. From the refrigerator, it's cold enough to require a bit more time on the stove than I prefer.

Not sure why I regard this as particularly blogworthy, but then, who cares?

Cheese Omelet: Beerfest

Since it wasn't October anymore, we called our little get-together "beerfest," though it was somewhat more sedate, and civilized, than the very bad movie of the same name. But it was very nice, with some barbecued beef, a beer and cheese soup that I'd never had before, and the usual array of salty snacks. Our brewmaster had sampled the beer earlier and allowed that while it was probably his worst batch ever, it was fit for consumption. He'd brewed beer for some time, to the point of entering competitions, but hadn't brewed anything in last three years. This was kind of a "rush job," in our zeal to have a party sort of based on Octoberfest.

The four of us each had a glass and toasted something perfunctory, I believe I offered, "here's mud in your eye," and had a draft. It was pretty good. Visibly, the biggest defect was the cloudiness. The beermeister said this was because we hadn't given it long enough in something called "secondary fermentation," after we'd "racked" it. The color was very dark, the flavor was hearty. The alcohol content was pretty low. We didn't perform whatever test there is to determine alcohol content, but we guessed it was somewhere in the 3%, "near-beer," range.

Just in case, I brought along a six-pack of Black Dog Ale, English Style Amber Ale. Out of curiosity, we poured a glass from one of the bottles and compared it to ours. The colors were nearly identical, the biggest difference naturally being the clarity of the commercial beer; but the real surprise was the taste. They tasted the same! Or close enough, I thought, that if you served them at the same temperature and the same carbonation, you probably couldn't tell the difference. So, I guess we didn't do too bad.

We had a number of guests drop by through the night, and by the end of the evening, which was really in the wee small hours of the morning, the keg was kicked. I got home about 0300, which was really 0200, and walked Bodhi a lap around the complex (which I'm counting toward today's mileage, I made it over 12 miles before the party), and went to bed.

I'm up this morning feeling pretty refreshed, apart from a certain hoarseness more attributable to some performances of a couple of George Thorogood numbers than anything else. One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer, probably did the most damage.

We have enough ingredients to make another batch. The beermeister says we can take our time and make a holiday brew and have a better result. He maintains a log book of all his efforts and we each had an opportunity to offer a comment on the beer, or a random, off-the-wall observation. As the evening went on, some pretty funny things were recorded, which prudence probably forbids repeating.

All-in-all, Beerfest was a very good time.

Cheese Sandwich: Motion

It's a beautiful day here today. Temperature was in the 50s this morning when I took Bodhi out. I had heard it was going to be a repeat of the last several days, which have been windy and gray because of Noel, but I guess she cleared out of here enough to leave us a pretty weekend.

It was so nice, I thought about taking a run outside this time. But I still want to take advantage of the feedback I get from the treadmill, and the motivation I get from listening to the Shuffle, so I ran indoors this morning. I felt pretty good and did 45 minutes at a 10 minute mile pace, which is nothing to brag about, I know. But I felt good enough afterward to take Bodhi on the 3.5 mile loop (the 2.88 plus a loop around the condo complex). So even though it's only the middle of the day I'm at about 9.5 miles for the day. Should make 12 before bed pretty easily.

It's the Sea & Sky show here this weekend. It alternates between the beaches and NAS Jacksonville every year. I'd like to go, but I have Caitie this weekend and she's not a big fan. I dragged her along two years ago, and it was a pretty miserable experience for both of us, since she really didn't want to be there. The jets fly by almost right overhead here at the condo anyway, so you get some of the show right here. It's a shame though, because it's an easy bike ride to the beach.

We're doing our little Octoberfest thing today, sampling our home-brewed beer and having some food. I think it'll be a pretty good time.

Alas, I'm also packing for the flight to LA on Monday. It's not so much that I hate traveling, though air travel can do that to you, it's just that I'm not exactly thrilled to endure the ordeal to go someplace that I have no particular desire to be. If I were going someplace that I liked, either to see someone I liked, or with someone I liked, I suppose that would be fun. This just kind of sucks. I'm bringing along the camera in the hope that I'll finally be able to get a picture of the sun setting over the ocean. Last time I was out in California, the "June Gloom" arrived early in May and I never saw the sun the entire week I was there. Go figure.

Music: Nick Cave and Warren Ellis

I'm enjoying Music From the Motion Picture The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which is a pretty long title for a soundtrack! It's all instrumental, and I'm sure it's not going to be to the taste of many, but I like it. Spare, western, sad, and haunted. Reminds me of something.

Cheese Sandwich: Post-Halloween Note

Just checking in here. Things have been rather busy, and I've got to head out to the left coast on Monday, so things are likely to remain busy for the next week or so. But I've got a few minutes right now.

Since last night was Halloween, I watched Alien because it's kind of scary and I haven't seen it in a very long time. Well, plus... Sigourney Weaver. It's held up pretty well as a scary movie. I liked the computer tech, it was so primitive! It reminded me of the quaintness of early science fiction movies where future technology resembled then-current technology, only lots more of it! (Lots of dials and switches and levers and lights.) Same thing in Alien. Only the lights and switches are a lot smaller, and there's a lot more of them! Plus CRTs with low-res wireframe graphics!

Of course, the ship landing on LV-426 always bothered me, and still does. But it's just a quick transitional piece, designed to kind of add to the tension.

The thing that kind of struck me this time was how much Ash was a scary monster himself. Of course, I knew he was an android, but watching Ian Holm's performance prior to that scene always suggested there was more than one alien among the crew. And Mother was another entity that was kind of scary. I still like, though I find it wholly absurd, how Mother only communicates with the captain, and in a special, immaculately white room with seemingly millions of little lights. Which was a holdover from O'Bannon's earlier Dark Star, upon which much of Alien is based. Anyway, good movie, good fun for a Halloween night.

I'm finally feeling back up to scratch. I've still got a nagging remnant of a cough, but I walked 4 miles at lunch yesterday, then ran 4.5 miles on the treadmill in the evening. Did another 3 or 4 miles on the various walks with Bodhi through the day. I haven't been back in the dojong since before my brother's wedding, well, apart from helping out at graduation last Friday, so I'm a little behind in my training.

The beer we brewed a couple of weeks ago is going to be on tap this weekend. And that's not even a pun! Looking forward to seeing how that turned out.

Leopard continues to be an interesting update. I've got it installed on four machines here at Action Dave's Cool-Guy Bachelor Skypad, including the MacBook, and I'm just beginning to explore the sharing features. Along with Back to My Mac, there may be some interesting things I can do. We shall see. I've looked at Spaces, which also suggests some interesting ways to modify the way I use my machines. So far, everything works as advertised and I haven't encountered any bugs or disappointments. Well, other than the ugly folder icons; and I'm not sure Stacks is really what I would call a "feature." More like a "gimmick," but there you go.

Well, time to go walk the dog...