I found god. Literally.
March 01, 2005 // Link
He’s a tiny plastic posable fellow who had been abandoned in my building’s mail room. I call him Tiny Roller Jesus, and I took him to Nerd Night last night to join in the board game geekery.
Speaking of Tiny Roller Jesus, he’s featured prominently in the new Gallery section I’ve just added to this blog. Right now, there are only a handful of galleries and there’s a very high percentage of “look at how cute my nephew is” photos.
I know, I know. Just like you, I hate it when other people blog endlessly about their supposedly cute kids or nephews or cats or whatever. So sue me.
But take heart: I’ve written a very simple system for auto-creating galleries based on whatever photos I upload, so you can probably expect it to grow rapidly in diversity and quantity.
In the meantime, look how cute my nephew is.
The African Cliff
March 06, 2005 // Link
The African Cliff is the name being given to the steep and sudden decline in life expectancy in sub-saharan Africa. I knew, as I’m sure you did, that AIDS was a massive problem in Africa. As of 2003, the HIV infection level in Africa was 25 times higher than in North America. Even so, I was unprepared for the impact of seeing the problem illustrated in this chart from the 2005 Economic Report of the President.
I just read through all of Chapter 7, where this graph originated. In all of he 6,561 words (thanks BBEdit word count) Condoms are mentioned 3 times. In each case, it’s in the context of sex education in the “ABC” form: Abstinence, Be Faithful, and correct and consistent Condom use. I have a problem with the A, and so do kids worldwide.
Sex, being normal and natural and healthy and fun, is not something people will abstain from. It’s not something people have ever abstained from. It’s not something people will ever abstain from. And it’s not something people should abstain from. Abstinence programs don’t work in Alabama, and they don’t work in Africa. Or to widen the field a bit and make that statement more accurate, abstinence programs don’t work on Earth.
The danger of playing Let’s Pretend We Don’t Have Genitals when you live south of the Mason-Dixon line is small compared to the death toll it takes in less developed places without access to cheap and effective medical treatment.
UNAIDS states that, in low- and middle-income countries, death rates for HIV-infected 15-49 year olds are up to 20 times greater than those of people living with HIV in industrialized countries
So let’s stop putting economic and social efforts into fruitless programs that appease religious sensibilities (by which I mean “irrational hypocrisy”) and just start giving out condoms dammit. I’m sure that supplying Africa with tens of millions of condoms and sensible “have fun, don’t die” sex education would have negligible costs compared to those of the drugs required to treat AIDS.
Here’s an interesting tidbit from that same Economic Report about condom use in Uganda:
Since 1990, a USAID-funded program has contributed to increases in condom use from 7 percent nationwide to more than 50 percent in rural areas and over 85 percent in urban areas.”
Now, let’s look at the chart. Oh my gosh, what a surprise: since 1990 the life expectancy in Uganda has not only stopped plummeting it’s been increasing. The bible tells me that’s coincidence, but I’m starting to lose faith. Thank god.
And before somebody says this isn’t a religious issue, think about the reason why the Prez can back a $15 billion international HIV drug treatment program but not a condom promotion and distribution plan for a fraction of that cost. It’s hard to stand up and say “Let’s save millions of lives for a few bucks a piece” when he can’t/won’t do the same in the U.S. due to the insistence by powerful lobby groups that sex is sin.
And due to the fact that he agrees.
Plato’s Symposium was butchered
March 08, 2005 // Link
Plato’s Symposium was butchered in a reading I attended last night with Sandy. It was the second in an ongoing monthly series of Candle Lit Readings at the Idoru restaurant. (I previously blogged about going to the first event, which featured two moderately painful poets.)
The problem with this reading was—
Wait, make that one of the problems with this reading was—
Um, better make it one of the many, many problems with this reading was the fact that the translation was done by somebody who didn’t seem to comprehend the original text. In the least. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if somehow this translation had been done without actually consulting the original text. I don’t know how one would go about doing that, but I guess I now know what the result would be.
What we were left with was a rather flat tale of a handful of hangover-burdened people talking about love. Worst of all, this translation dropped the frame narrative completely, which is like setting out to remake Star Wars without including the bits that take place in space. (I’m sure Lucas will get around to that edit eventually.)
If you’re unfamiliar with the Symposium, the frame narrative is essentially this: Plato says that Apollodorus—in a quick rehearsal of an account he didn’t witness firsthand—said that Aristodemus—who slept through much of the actual event—said that Socrates said that Diotima gave the following intentionally ambiguous account...
Not that you’d have gotten any of that from last night’s reading, which is too bad. I had been really looking forward to the reading because I hadn’t seen something this layered and complicated performed at such an event. I guess I still haven’t.
I could go on and on (I suppose I already have). For instance, the writer and the performers clearly took the stance that Diotima’s speech is the “correct” one as intended by Plato. And I suppose that’s about as wrong as you can get.
Oh, except the performance was such that the audience laughed without pity at Alcibiades, so I guess they got wronger after all.
Well, at least the wine was good, and the irony of that wasn’t lost on me either.
I was grazing on movie trailers
March 12, 2005 // Link
I was grazing on movie trailers over at Apple’s site, and I watched the promo for Robots. It’s typical “look! quirky characters! fast action! kid friendly poopy jokes!” fare. Empty calories in trailer form, easily forgettable except for the disclaimer at the end:
“Attention shoppers! There is a blue light special on clues in aisle four.”
Why why WHY would they stick a stern warning barring duplication or distribution at the end of a promotional piece? The whole film industry is copyright crazy, but this is nuts even for them.
The POINT of a trailer is to promote a film. Fox and its ilk are willing to pay to have their trailers stuck in front of other films just to get the opportunity to sell films to people, and here they are knee-jerkingly shouting “don’t copy our stuff you bloody thieves” at the end of their free promotional material.
I know that movie producers generally hate their customers. (I know this because of prequels. I know this because of Macrovision. I know this because of Uwe Boll.) But you’d think they could control their litigious and petty instincts when it comes to something that’s so clearly in their best interests to have duplicated as much as possible.
“Please bring all purchases to the registers now, and thank you for shopping at ClueMart.”
The song in my head
March 13, 2005 // Link
The song in my head below each post is an idea I came up with ages ago back when this blog was an addition to my old Movie Punks webcomic. I wanted something different than the “mood” tag all the blog kids used back then. And yes, I actually do usually have some tune running through my mind.
Since every blogger and his mother now has a musical tag line I’m going to take it to the next level, as the rappers say. At least, they say that as far as I know. To be honest, while I’m a big De La Soul fan my knowledge of hip hop peaked with Crush Groove.
[aside]
And every movie sequel still sounds better if you append “Electric Boogaloo” to the title.
[end of aside]
Below the “song in my head” I’ve now added a line for “band name idea.” It’s the word or phrase from each post that I think would make a good band name. I’ve even gone back and added it to the past few posts.
Once you and your friends finish arguing over who is going to get stuck on bass, my blog can be you one stop shopping place for band names by the metric bushel.
I’m so useful.
I played Undying
March 14, 2005 // Link
I played Undying, the Clive Barker-scripted first person shooter game, and found it a very enjoyable romp. The sound in particular was incredibly well done, and I really liked the two-handed fighting scheme that combined left-handed weapons with right-handed spell casting.
My favorite element of the game was the scrying spell, which would reveal images and sounds from the past, illuminate magical beasties, and most fun of all unveil haunted aspects of objects such as paintings.
It reminded me of the paintings in the Haunted Mansion in Disney World, which in turn reminded me that it’s been far too long since I’ve been to the land of Mickey and kin. I still hold a grudge over the fact that they ripped down Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, but I do love the Magic Kingdom itself nonetheless—even if their copyright policies bite the big cel-animated weenie.
Anyway, it was a fun game is what I’m saying.
This book meme
March 17, 2005 // Link
This book meme has been making the blog rounds and it caught my lit-lovin’ eye. If any of you out there in blogland answer it yourselves, drop me a line so I can see your selections.
YOU’RE STUCK INSIDE FAHRENHEIT 451, WHICH BOOK DO YOU WANT TO BE?
The Early Worm by Robert Benchley
HAVE YOU EVER HAD A CRUSH ON A FICTIONAL CHARACTER?
A character from a book? Not that I recall, though I’d be willing to step out with Nora Charles or Tuppence Beresford any time.
Um, is it wrong of me to have picked two married gals? Yeah, I thought so.
THE LAST BOOK YOU BOUGHT IS:
Triplanetary by E. E. “Doc” Smith
THE LAST BOOK YOU READ:
Ask The Dust by John Fante
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?
New Grub Street by George Gissing
FIVE BOOKS YOU WOULD TAKE TO A DESERTED ISLAND.
With the caveat that something like The Illustrated Book Of Building Ocean Going Vessels From Palm Fronds is disqualified, I’d select:
- Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
- Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
- Battle Circle by Piers Anthony
- Adventures of Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
- Around The World In Eighty Days by Jules Verne
WHO ARE YOU GOING TO PASS THIS STICK TO (3 PERSONS) AND WHY?
None of my friends can read.
Glub glub
March 25, 2005 // Link
Dark outside + bright room = on display.
I feel like I’m in a fishbowl. Of course, the bubble castle in the corner doesn’t help.
Ah, last week. I remember it well.
March 27, 2005 // Link
Ah, last week. I remember it well. And that’s unfortunate, since it was the most mind-numbingly boring, tedious, and frustrating week I’ve had in ages. I’m a relatively chipper fellow who tends toward optimism and good moods, but last week was crap by any measure.
My birthday was on Thursday, which is always a happy day since I like any reason to celebrate me. Go me! For I’m a jolly good fellow, for I’m a jolly good fellow, etc.
Where was I? Oh right: a b-day for the C-man. This year it was extremely non-eventful, to the point that I spent a little over 14 hours working and the remainder of it sleeping. The rest of the week was filled with about 75 hours of mind-numbingly tedious tasks that ranged from manual labor to PC repairs. Hard to say which is worse.
Wait, no it isn’t. I’ll tell you what’s worse: working from 7:30 AM Tuesday straight through until 7:30 AM on Wednesday—yes, a complete ‘round the clock, 24-hour shift. Plus I worked 10 hours on Good Friday (AKA Everyone Gets A Holiday Except Carrington Day) and there wasn’t a single day last week that didn’t find me working until at least 3:00 AM doing something I either hated or at least strongly disliked.
Oh, and my digital camera got fried so now it’s a paperweight.
Complain, whine, bitch, wah wah wah. I finally have a blog post that makes me sound like a normal blogger. If I only I could bring myself to drop the capitals and punctuation I might be able to get into the Cool Bloggers Club.
A boy can dream can’t he?
Besides, worse things happen than having to pull some extra hours yawning over something you dislike. For instance, I found out on Saturday that due to an editor’s system failure a friend of mine lost all the cuts from a film that had taken him and his partners ten years to produce.
Hearing that helped me end the week with a really clear sense of perspective. I’ll take a single week of tedious monkey-work over losing a decade of filmmaking any time. So I guess I’ve never had it so good after all.
Oh crap, so much for the Club.