Think of the CHILDREN!

The things you learn about your locality, from the strangest sources. I just learned, via BookSlut, that Buffalo's Channel 7 used to use its secondary audio feed to carry periodicals and books, read for the blind by volunteers. Key word: used to. As the news article reads:

That was until earlier this year when one listener complained about a word heard during the reading of Tom Wolfe's new novel, "I Am Charlotte Simmons."

Even though such fare was read only after 10 p.m., Channel 7 officials -- fearing the prospect, the expense, the ordeal or the uncertainty of an FCC indecency investigation -- dropped the service. Several weeks later, according to The Buffalo News, limited service returned -- but no programming at all between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

This is something that I've noticed for a while, but haven't thought about how to put into words, and I'm still not entirely sure about it -- but it seems to me that we have, in some way, allowed a single complaint to outweigh the satisfaction of far more people who are satisfied. This manifested all the time when I was working in the restaurant business. At my Pizza Hut, we had a family of regular "customers" who would come in oh, once a month or so, and they were unbelievably disruptive when they did. Their three young children -- all of apparent ages within two years of each other -- would scream incessantly; they would literally complain about everything about their experience from start to finish; and so on. And yet, we couldn't ask them to not come in any more, because the corporate mindset was that a customer complaint is to be avoided at all costs. (Never mind the complaints from the other customers whose experiences were disrupted by these people.) Losing the business of this family was considered unacceptable.

What does this have to do with the blind-reading service above? It seems to me that the "One complaint is all it takes" attitude has been adopted by those who would see censorship take hold:

It is the censor's perfect formula: One word plus one complaint plus one calculation equals millions of words for an audience of thousands wiped from existence.

One person was offended by a single word, and therefore blind people in range of Channel 7's audio feed are deprived of a valuable service. And in this case, it didn't even require government intervention: Channel 7 pulled its own plug. I'd call that de facto censorship, in a time when the FCC is basically casting itself as the mobster: "Nice little TV station ya's got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it."

In the article linked above, I also see a pretty stunning quote from one of our elected representatives. It seems that Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), recently had this to say to cable executives on the subject of promoting "decency" on the airwaves:

I'd prefer using the criminal process rather than the regulatory process.

Say what we don't want you to say, and you'll go to jail. That's a powerful Congressman's take on "decency".

My head hurts.

Craig of BUFFALOg has decided to take his blogging ball and go home. Fine. We'll get our own ball. And our new ball will bounce to the left! Heh! Indeed!

Kidding aside, what he's actually done is dig into his own pocketbook and get his own domain name and set up an entirely new blog, so welcome America's North Coast to the mix. (BTW, he's not just a Buffalonian -- if you're after right-of-center commentary that doesn't froth at the mouth, Craig's got the goods. He's a daily read of mine, and for someone with whom I agree politically maybe twenty percent of the time, that's saying something.)

Now for the headache: I don't have to delete the "BUFFALOg" link in the Buffalo section of the blogroll, because it turned out that there's another Buffalo-based blog called "Buffalog", and it's also run by a guy named Craig. So, Craig has a new URL, but that's OK, because I can just change the link for the old Craig to a link for the new Craig and give the old Craig a new link.

Oy. Blogging is hard work.

(I wonder if there's a blog called "Istanbul's Beaches" or "Constantinople's Waterfront" or something like that? I'd better not try to find out. It might just be my evil twin brother Ed.)

Kid-Lit

Lance Mannion posted some children's literature recommendations the other day. Check them out. I agree entirely with the ones there with which I am familiar.

In our household, the "Amelia Bedelia" books are always a hit with The Daughter, although I have a hard time reading them aloud because about the eighth time I have to say "Amelia Bedelia", my tongue starts to trip on the name -- and the name generally occurs at least once per page in each 60-page book. But they are funny -- the earlier ones, anyway. The more recent ones -- and it's blindingly obvious which ones these are -- are less so.

The Baranstain Bears are always a hit, too. Even the ones that deal with a "message" are decent, because they tend to do it without being annoyingly condescending. Curious George is also a good bet most of the time -- especially the alphabet one, because I'll bet that's the only children's book that uses the word "dromedary". And we also like Rosemary Wells's Max books a lot.

Of course, for ongoing recommendations on children's books, Will Duquette is the place to go. It's pretty funny when Will encounters a book he doesn't like; his verdict is always some variant of "They can read it when they grow up if they want to, but I am sure not reading that book ever again!" That kind of says it all, doesn't it?

Stop the Goofiness!

Just in case any of my readers happens to be tooling around town in a Scion XB, I'm sorry, but I have to say that every time I see one of these on the road, I expect it to pull up to the curb and for a milkman to hop out. Probably one who looks a bit like John Cleese or Michael Palin.

Seriously, that has to be the goofiest looking car on the road today.

"Revelations"

I made an attempt to watch that new show Revelations last night, because I do enjoy a good apocalyptic story once in a while (but not of the Left Behind variety), and I gave up at pretty much the exact same moment that PZ Myers gave up. There's something there about fine minds thinking alike, or something like that. Anyway, I guess I'll just restrict my apocalypse tastes for my DVD set of Millennium's first season. Now there was a great show. I watched the pilot the other day, and it was still fairly chilling, even eight years later (and five after the actual turning of the millennium).

And when Americal Idol was over (How on Earth does a crappy singer like Scott Savol keep surviving?!), I turned it over to Eyes, which is one of the most entertaining shows I've seen in a long time. If you've seen the movie Sneakers, that's sort of what Eyes is like. It thrills me that somebody's trying to make a crime show that's fun and entertaining in the way that Magnum, PI and The Rockford Files were, as opposed to the constant dourness of the Law and Order franchise. (CSI is a different animal -- the original's got lots of black humor, which the New York incarnation has been adding in as well, while the Miami edition has sun, surf, and Emily Procter.)

Anyway, give Eyes a try, folks.

Ummm...folks?

There's a fun blog-game being kicked around (here and here) that looks pretty fun, but to my knowledge, no one has yet kicked the ball my way. Over here! I'm open! Hey! Come on, guys!

(Lord, I feel like I'm back playing basketball in junior high again...except I was the guy who was so bad at basketball that I didn't want the ball. I later learned, during my college years, from an eye doctor that my depth perception is very poor, and reflecting on that, I realized that I am bad at estimating distances, which may well be what makes me such a spectacularly bad shot in basketball.)

Sorry 'bout that!

Whoops. I did not intend to go two days without posting anything here; it just kind of happened. There was some hectic stuff going on, some not quite so hectic stuff going on, and just some general apathy here and there. I feel mildly guilty about missing two days when I'm on the cusp of a six-day hiatus (coming next week, see sidebar for dates), but not that guilty. You all don't own me! I'm a free person! Gahhhhh!

Errr...back to the show.

A Blast from the Past

Back when I first started blogging, a common name that cropped up on liberal blogs was that of David Horowitz, a guy who apparently was a liberal at one time but became a conservative, and one of the most intellectually dishonest ones alive. I hadn't seen Horowitz mentioned in quite some time, though, until today, when I see that he engaged in an e-mail "debate", edited the replies he received, and then responded to the edits alone. And apparently Horowitz didn't think that his interlocutor would (a) notice, or (b) still have his own e-mailed responses to the questions asked.

I'd call Horowitz a hack, except that would be an insult to hacks.

(Link via Dr. Myers.)

Great Moments in Customer Care

I just remembered this post of Forrest Covington's from a week or two ago, in which he relates a pretty amusing question he received from a potential client of his. And I figured that people who play the piano would be, you know, inherently smart enough to not ask questions like this. Wow.

(I'm amazed that Mr. Covington didn't respond that he could just tune the black keys, thus saving the pianist even more money if he would switch to playing nothing but pentatonic music!)

You can almost see the shrinkage from space.

Here's downtown Buffalo, via Google's new satellite imaging thingie. And by scrolling just a bit to the south, you can see Buffalo's beautiful waterfront: brown and completely undeveloped. And note that all those wonderful, glorious expressways between the city and the water, like a giant concrete chastity belt. Oy.

EDIT: Link fixed.

Do they have to order pizza in the same language?

The Tensor wants to know what language the Cardinals will speak when they're sequestered away to choose the next Pope. Personally, I wonder what language the Cardinals will speak in batting practice tomorrow! [rimshot]

Actually, I find this whole thing partly fascinating, and partly of the "Wake me when it's over" variety. I think it would be funny, actually, if they just had a big "rock-paper-scissors" competition, with the winner being made Pope.

And I think it would be cool if the next Pope took the name "Gigantor". Just because the world needs a Pope Gigantor the First. (And, in all likelihood, the same guy would be Pope Gigantor the Last.)

Oh boys! I think he's come round for his noon feeding....

(This is a long post with a lot of graphics, for which I apologize in advance. This post also may not be for those on the squeamish side.)

Now that Little Quinn is nearing the eight-month-old mark, I'm feeling slightly reflective. That eight-month span has, in some ways, seemed terribly short, and there are times when I genuinely feel like it was just a week ago that our second attempt to have a child came this close to ending perfectly before it all went wrong. But then there are times when that night seems like it was a lifetime ago, considering all of the things we have learned and fought and struggled against and come to terms with since that day. I imagine it will come as no small surprise to anyone who knew me in college to learn that, among other changes to my lifestyle, Little Quinn has turned me into both a morning person and a regular church-goer. (That second, though, is admittedly less for religious reasons of my own than for family reasons.)

Anyhow, with all of the medical struggles we've faced with him, by far the greatest single day-to-day challenge to raising Little Quinn has been feeding him. It's a lengthy process that on one level strikes me as a kind of medical miracle, and on another strikes me as a horrible perversion of nature. I'm happy that we've developed this method of feeding an infant who is unable to reliably take food by mouth, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone or their child.

After Quinn's initial set of health problems stabilized, the next problem was determining to what extent the brain damage he suffered at birth would affect his day-to-day necessary tasks. Swallowing, it turns out, is a fairly advanced bit of coordinated activity in the mouth and throat, as is sucking; and without the ability to reliably do either, Little Quinn faced serious problems with feeding. It was determined that he was able to swallow, but not all that strongly, and his gag reflex is very underdeveloped. And this, in turn, meant that in the event that he regurgitated -- a dead certainty with infants -- he would have serious difficulty in protecting his own airway. That's one of the huge "design flaws" in the human body: we take air and food through the same passage. (Note to God: When you get around to designing Homo sapiens v. 2.0, I'd put this bug at the top of the list of things to fix.)

So, because Little Quinn had some ability to swallow and clear his mouth of secretions, the doctors determined that at that time he did not require a tracheotomy. But because his oral function wasn't up to taking food, he did require surgery to put something called a G-tube in his stomach, through which we would give him food through a syringe and an extender tube. At the same time, his esophagus was "looped around" at the bottom, a procedure which would still allow him to take food by mouth later in life but would render him incapable of spitting up (and, we shall see later on, burping). A G-tube is basically a little "port" in the stomach, held fairly loosely in place by a couple of saline-filled balloons on the inside and with a little plastic flap that closes the opening when not in use.

And this, in a photo that I took just an hour or so ago, is what Little Quinn's G-tube looks like.

Here it is, closer:

What's really creepy about that little thing, at first, is that it's not anchored in place. It actually spins freely, and it can apparently be pulled right out of the stomach with little effort. And in the event that that happens, we're instructed to stick it back in there and whisk Little Quinn off to the ER for "reinstallation", because the incision in which that thing is rooted apparently can close extremely quickly. Like, within an hour. No, this has not happened to us yet.

So, obviously the idea is to simply pour liquid nourishment right into Little Quinn's stomach through that thing. One doctor, sensing our trepidation about the whole thing, described it to me in precisely that way, even going so far as to say that "A G-tube is nothing," in one of those doctor's remarks that immediately makes me want to respond, "How healthy are your damned kids?" (Luckily, my inner sense of tact prevailed. The doc was genuinely trying to put me at ease, and there is a sense in which he's right. It's amazing what you can make part of your daily life when you have no choice.)

The reality of the tube in action, though, was quite a bit different.

As I noted above, the looping of Little Quinn's esophagus made him incapable of burping, which anyone who's ever been around a baby will know is absolutely necessary. In Little Quinn's case, the only way we have to get gas out of his system is to hook up his tube and prod his stomach until the bubbles pop out. This was by far the most difficult part of the whole operation in the first months. A baby with a belly-ache is bad, but a baby with a belly-ache and a G-tube is an inhuman nightmare. Patting a baby's back until he lets the gas out through his or her mouth is one thing; literally squeezing the gas out of his stomach through a man-made hole that shouldn't be there in the first place is something else.

The more recent development is that we've had to switch almost entirely to using infant formula for Little Quinn's feedings. This is a disappointment, but it was unavoidable. Since he has never nursed, The Wife has been unable in the end to artifically pump enough breastmilk to keep his caloric intake at adequate levels. We started off having to mix formula into the breastmilk, and now Little Quinn is being fed formula almost exclusively. We take solace in that we got him through his first winter almost entirely on breastmilk.

(I'm pretty militant in my views on infant formula: so far as I am concerned, the stuff should be available by prescription only. It's a food of convenience, and I see little to be gained in giving people "fast food" as soon as they are out of the womb. The topic came up at work recently, and a co-worker sagely pointed out that "Breastfeeding isn't for everybody", as though it's a mere lifestyle choice. My reply was that breastfeeding is for everybody; that's why women have them. Few things make me crazier than to hear a new mother say that she tried breastfeeding but it just "didn't take", and when I ask her how long she did it for, hearing a response of, "Oh, a day or two". This is one of very few topics on which I am pretty militant.)

So, how does a tube-feeding work? What's it look like? Well, here is Little Quinn's afternoon feeding from today, in pictures. It starts off like just about any other time you feed a baby: with the kid in your arms.

But you don't stick the bottle in his mouth, nor do you slide your nipple in there, if you're the mother and you're breastfeeding. Instead, you unbutton his outfit (by the way, the presence of the G-tube makes baby clothes that button in back totally impractical) and hook up the G-tube to the extender tube and syringe. Here's what the whole "device" looks like when fastened.

That white clamp in the middle of the tube is the key to the whole affair. It pinches off the tube, so that the fluid inside cannot run. (And by the way, that little tube -- it's no more than a foot in length, and narrower than a standard USB cable -- costs over one hundred dollars. Imagine trying to afford that if you had no health insurance, considering that those tubes wear out very quickly since you're using them six times a day, every day. We've been going through two a month.)

Now, you can't just start puring breastmilk or formula right in there, because if you did that, the flowing liquid would force the air that's already in the tube into Little Quinn's stomach. What happens first is that we hook up the empty tube, and then open the clamp and gently massage Little Quinn's tummy until whatever's in there comes out:

Hopefully, it's mostly gas, and this will actually explode out and make a pretty funny "burping" noise, but often we'll get bubbly remnants of his last meal. And if we're really scraping the bottom of an empty tummy, we'll actually get stomach acid in the tube. Did you know that stomach acid is the same color as Mello Yello or Mountain Dew? I don't drink either anymore.

After we're done with the "venting", we fill the tube and syringe with food. This means clamping the tube, unhooking him, rinsing it clear, pouring milk or formula into the syringe, and then unclamping the tube, allowing the contents of the syringe to run free. (Obviously, we stick the "exit" end of the tube into the bottle so it runs right back into there.) Then, while it's flowing, we re-clamp the tube. If done properly, this results in the tube containing nothing but milk (i.e., no bubbles). Then, we hook Little Quinn up again, and unclamp the tube, holding it up so that the contents of the syringe flow into his stomach:

Thie feeding method is called "bolus feeding", and it employs gravity: by holding the syringe above the level of Little Quinn's stomach, the milk drains downward into his tummy. However, the rate of feeding can be altered by lowering the syringe to slow it down, and if we actually hold the syringe below the level of his tummy, the milk will actually run out of his stomach and back into the syringe. When doing this, the milk will actually pulsate along with the rhythm of Little Quinn's stomach contractions; and sometimes, if he has to cough or sneeze or has a stronger reflux, his stomach will actually force the milk out at a surprising rate. It will actually form a spout in the syringe, which is one of many fascinating things I'd give anything to have never seen at all.

Due to some principle of physics, I assume, we can never get every drop of food into his stomach, but we can get it so the tube is empty except for a segment close to his tummy, like this close-up of the tube in mid-feed after the syringe has been emptied the first time:

This is where time becomes a factor. A feeding is generally four ounces, but we can't just pour four ounces into Little Quinn at once. We have to do it a little bit at a time (for comparison, that large syringe has a capacity of two ounces, so he gets two of those in a full feeding). We give him a bit of food, and then we clamp the tube and allow him to "rest" for a bit. Then, we unclamp him and again massage his tummy a bit, because bubbles can form in his stomach that quickly. Here's what the bubbles look like in the tube, as we squeeze them out:

That's what burps look like, people.

Now, if Little Quinn is feeling "under the weather", he might cry a lot during a feeding and resist it and even push it back into the syringe while we're trying to get his food into him. Unfortunately, there is little we can do in such cases except wait him out because eventually has no choice but to digest what we put into him. These feedings are very difficult, however, because in addition to having a screaming baby in our lap for what seems like eternity, the milk becomes thicker and thicker as it comes in and out of his stomach. That means it gets harder and harder to get it through that skinny tube. This was true of breastmilk, and it's even more true of infant formula. Little Quinn's feedings used to be like that all the time, but over the last couple of months as he's finally started putting on weight and getting stronger, the "rejection of the feeding" has happened far less frequently. The reaction we like to see is this one:

That's a yawn, not a cry. (It was hard getting the photo to snap at the unmistakable instant of "yawniness".)

It takes about half an hour, if everything goes smoothly, to get a feeding into Little Quinn so that he isn't uncomfortable afterwards. But after the feeding is done, the wrap-up is simple: we disconnect the extender tube, close up the "port", button up his clothes, and then do what parents always do with freshly-fed babies. We rock them to sleep.

And if we've done our job well, this is the reward that awaits us for a completed feeding:

That's a reward worth waiting for, n'est-ce pas?

UPDATE: An update of this post, detailing our use of an electric feeding pump for Little Quinn's G-tube feedings, can be found here.

UPDATE, 30 November 2005: For those who are finding this post via search engine requests for information on the realities of g-tube feeding, I wrote this post to serve as an aid of sorts for parents who find themselves in a similar position to ours, and who might be looking for an actual parental perspective as opposed to the clinical perspective the doctors can give. Doctors can be wonderful, but while they can tell you what to do and how to do it, they generally can't convey what it is like to incorporate the realities of medical procedures into one's daily life. It was in that spirit that I wrote this post, and I am more than willing to answer questions about it via e-mail.

Sadly, I should also report that Little Quinn's story came to an end on November 28, 2005. The details thereof can be found here.

Ooooooh! Another one!

Yup, it's another one of them blogging game meme things, pilfered this time from Sarah Jane Elliott. What I've done is this: below is a list of twenty musicians I particularly admire, and what the readers need to do is try to guess my favorite work by each one. Some of these, admittedly, will be film composers; I'd like those suggestions narrowed down to specific tracks, but failing that, feel free to name a general score. I'll bold the entries on the list as the correct guesses roll in.

(Oh, and these are in no particular order; I'm just listing musicians as they come to me.)

1. John Williams ("Yoda and the Force" by The Empire Strikes Back)
2. Hector Berlioz
3. Pink Floyd
4. Van Halen
5. Van Morrison
6. Jerry Goldsmith
7. Sergei Rachmaninov ("Symphony No. 2 in E minor" -- but man, that Second Piano Concerto is enthralling)
8. Enya
9. Kate Rusby
10. The Chieftains
11. Alan Silvestri
12. George Gershwin
13. Frank Sinatra
14. Bobby Darin
15. Lerner and Loewe ("On the Street Where You Live", from My Fair Lady. "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" is right up there, though.)
16. The Platters
17. Ludwig van Beethoven
18. Loreena McKennitt ("The Highwayman", indeed. Great bit of song-storytelling there.)
19. Dougie MacLean
20. Jim Croce ("Photographs and Memories" it is! Although "Operator" is the first Croce tune I really loved.)

Give it a shot, folks!

UPDATE the FIRST: Hokey-dokey, folks -- I'm starting to see the trouble with this particular game. I listed the above musicians with specific songs or works in mind, but now that I see a few of the comments, I'm wondering if my original "favorites" are my real favorites or not! Well, keep commenting -- I'll update this as events warrant.

PG-13!

That's the apparent official rating for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, according to AICN. That bodes well for the dark and violent film most fans, including myself, are salivating for.

New at GMR

I've mentioned the book The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to Celtic Music, by Fiona Ritchie, a couple of times before in this space, and now my review of said book is up at GMR:

I would imagine that more than a few people first encountered Celtic music through the public radio program Thistle and Shamrock, which has run on National Public Radio for over twenty years. That's certainly the way it was with me. Hosted for all that time by Fiona Ritchie, the show is an institution that takes listeners on a weekly tour of Celtic music, sometimes focusing on the newest music available, sometimes focusing on more classic material, sometimes highlighting the grand "old names" of Celtic music, sometimes leaning toward the newest crossover artists. With Ritchie's extensive knowledge of the music and the infectious enthusiasm and passion that fills each episode, it's the most natural thing in the world that she should write the Celtic Music entry in NPR's Curious Listener's Guide series.

Click the link to read the rest.

Sunday Burst of Weirdness

I've never much liked the movie Se7en, mainly for storytelling reasons -- the first two-thirds of the movie are very engrossing, and the last scene is absolutely chilling. What gets me is that I always feel a huge disconnect between the first two acts and the third act, as if the writers, having gone from point A to point B, couldn't figure out how to logically get to point C, so they just copped out by having "the Killer" simply walk into the police station. When I first saw the film in the theater, I just felt the air going right out of the movie when that happened, and instead of watching the final scene in growing horror, I was basically sitting back and saying, "OK, so how does he kill Gwyneth Paltrow?" (Because frankly, if you couldn't see the Gwyneth Paltrow character's horrible demise coming a mile away -- the fact of it, if not the precise manner -- then you simply don't have a pulse. It's what Roger Ebert calls "the Law of Economy of Characters" at work.)

But that last scene is certainly a good scene, and had it existed in a context that made more sense, I'd be among the chorus of voices deeming the film utterly brilliant.

So where's the weirdness, you ask? Well, it's in seeing that final scene enacted using stuffed animals. Now that's just wrong.

There, but for the Grace....

Read this.

Great quote!

I just watched Bull Durham, a movie that's got one of the great all-time screenplays, and I just caught a terrific line that isn't as famous as some of the more familiar ones from the movie:

ANNIE: The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self-awareness.

Man, that's some serious philosophy, there.

Lions and tigers and memes, oh no!

I've stolen yet another "List of Crap About Me" thing, this time from QuirkyChick (whose blog design, by the way, I absolutely love). Enjoy. Or not. (None of this stuff is likely to be any surprise at all to longtime readers. I'm mainly doing this quiz because some of its questions are phrased in a way I haven't seen before.)

V I T A L S

(I'm omitting this section, containing stuff like name, height, eye color, and whatnot because its questions are answered pretty much everywhere you might look for such info on this blog. Moving right along....)

S C H O O L

Are you still in school: No.
Favorite subject: Philosophy and music. (In college, I majored and minored in both.)
Least favorite subject: Economics. I just couldn't shake my sense that it was all made-up mumbo-jumbo that didn't really explain much. But I liked the one econ prof I had in college quite a lot. She was a neat lady. (Still is, I guess. I don't think she's dead.)
Do/did you buy lunch or bring it: Ummmm...is this a high school thing? In my Junior and Senior years, I rarely bothered to even eat lunch. In college, I ate in the school cafeteria a lot the first two years, and then moved off campus the last two years, so my diet then consisted of large amounts of Ramen noodles, canned ravioli, Mac-and-Cheese, and the occasional pizza when a check from Mom and Dad arrived.

F A V O R I T E

Number: I vacillate between 2187 and 1138.
Clothing : Well, my fall, winter, and early spring wardrobe pretty much revolves around the theme you see in the pictures in the sidebar -- sweaters, long-sleeve henley or t-shirts, and overalls. During warmer climate, though, I pack the heavier stuff away in favor of t-shirts and bermuda shorts. As always, comfort is my key when picking clothes. If it's not comfortable, I don't care if it makes me look like Cary Grant. I'm not wearing it. (Obviously, clothing required by work is different, since I don't have the option of not wearing what they tell me to wear, but I work in a place where the required clothing is generally pretty comfortable. And it's nice to not have to sit around thinking, "Gee, what should I wear tomorrow..." Plus, they're pretty lenient about letting us accessorize in ways that add flair and personality to our garb. Such as the Celtic hair ties I recently bought.)
TV show: Hmmm. The West Wing has made quite a comeback this season. CSI is still a favorite. For reasons passing understanding, I am totally hooked on The Apprentice. And even though it's only two episodes old, I can see Eyes becoming a big favorite. That show's just fun. I also like Desperate Housewives, believe it or not.
Fruit: Apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries, kiwi.
Movie: Star Wars Epiosde IV: A New Hope.
Scent: Cooking meat. (If this is actually asking about perfume or something like that, I have no idea.)
Ice Cream Flavor: Coffee Haagen-Dasz. Once the subject of a college road-trip at midnight.
Color: Purple. I also like red a lot. And blue. Black is also highly useful.
Season: Fall. Why Buffalo isn't spending money to aggressively market its October climate in the hot states is absolutely beyond me. October is the greatest month of all -- weatherwise, sportswise, it's just an all-around awesome month.
Holiday: Thanksgiving.
Thing in your room: Which room? Heck, I dunno. My single-volume of Lord of the Rings, maybe. But really, I don't know. (Oooooh wait, I do know: my writing desk. How'd I forget that?!)
Author: I can't pick just one. But if you held a gun to my head, I'd yelp "Guy Gavriel Kay".
TV channel: The only reason I miss cable is because I can no longer watch the Food Network. For local news, Channel 2 is getting my nod, which is a surprise since local news here has sucked for years.
Shape: Ummmm...the feminine hourglass. Let's move on....
Time: Early evening. Between five and seven.
State: Bliss. (Or are we talking like which of the fifty US states? That would be New York, obviously. Because it's home. But every state is worth being proud of, to its inhabitants, when you get down to it. Well, maybe not Texas. That place is just messed up!*)
Disney character: Peter Pan, with Emperor Cuzco from The Emperor's New Groove a very close second.
Scary movie: The Silence of the Lambs.

» T H I S O R T H A T «

Hot or cold: Weather? Cold. Tea? Hot. Coffee? Hot. Wings? Medium.
Winter or summer: Winter.
Spring or fall: Fall
Shakira or Britney: Dunno who the former is, and utterly detest the latter. Moving on.
MTV or VH1: DVD (I'm keeping QC's answer for this one, since it's perfect)
Rollerblading or skateboarding: Rollerblading. I suck at it, but I enjoy the hell out of it. And I imagine that seeing me coming at one on a pair of rollerblades is a fairly terrifying sight!
Black or white: Black.
Orange or red: Red.
Yellow or green: Green.
Purple or pink: Purple.
Cell phone or pager: Cell phone. (Even though I don't have one.)
Powerpuff Girls or Charlie’s Angels: Charlie's Angels (but only as long as I can have the originals!)
Scooby Doo or Dino: Satchel (from Get Fuzzy)

Y E S O R NO

Are you a vegetarian: No. I long ago decided that nothing ever eats that something else doesn't die, so I'm fine with it.
Do you like cows: Well, I love The Far Side, which has to count for something.
Are you a bitch: Huh?!
Are you artistic: Not with the visual arts.
Do you write poetry: Once in a while. It always stinks.
Can you ski: I've enjoyed Nordic skiing. Never done downhill.
Are you British: What?
Are you straight: Again, what?
Are you evil: Well, the Objectivist Weirdo over on the FSM message boards has told me that I'm evil, but that's the only such testimonial I have as yet.
Is Britney a whore: I have no idea as to her "whoreness". I do think that she's an untalented tart who uses sex appeal to gain fame. If that's the same thing, then yes.

P R I V A T E

Have you ever been in love: Most definitely. More than once, even.
Do you smoke: No.
Do you smoke weed: No. I might have tried it in college, had the guy I knew who did smoke weed on occasion ever had any when I dropped in to visit. But no, I never tried it.
Crack, heroin, anything else: Absolutely not. Never dabbled, either. The strongest thing I ever take is Excedrin.
Beer good or beer bad: Well, that depends, doesn't it? Yuenglings good. Schlitz bad.
Are you the sissy who drinks wine coolers: Great God Almighty, NO!!

» T H E L A S T «

Thing you ate: Peanut M&Ms.
Thing you drank: Water.
Place you went: The Store for the weekly groceries.
Thing you got pierced/tattooed: Never done any of this.
Song you heard: An aria from Tosca, which was playing on the radio on my way home.
Person you instant messaged: I don't IM much anymore, and I don't even remember.
Person you laughed with: The Wife. Other than her, a very good friend at The Store.

N O W

What are you eating: The same peanut M&Ms.
What are you drinking: Nothing. (I finished the water and will be having a Pepsi shortly.)
Any shoes on: My hiking boots.
Hair: Tied back in one of my Celtic hair-ties. (I should post a picture of these sometime -- I think they look pretty cool.)
Listening to: My keyboard, and Little Quinn snoring.
Talking to anyone: No one but me here right now. (The Daughter is outside playing as of this writing.)

L A S T

Last Cigarette: I've never smoked. See above. (I had two cigars in 1995, when two guys I worked with had babies in the same month. That's the only smoking I have ever done.)
Last Alcoholic Drink: A bottle of Yuengling's. It's been a while -- maybe a month or more. I don't drink very much at all any more.
Last Car Ride: An hour or so ago.
Last Good Cry: The frequency has fallen off quite a bit at last, but for a while there I was having these hourly.
Last Library Book: I always have a stack, some of which I read and some of which I don't. I can't recall what I have out right now, except for a book called Brush Up Your Poetry.
Last book bought: The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to Celtic Music (of which I should have a review appearing in GMR tomorrow -- I'll post a link if it's there).
Last Book Read: The Bad and the Beautiful: Hollywood in the Fifties
Last Movie Seen in Theatres: Finding Neverland
Last Movie Rented: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. (I also check movies out of the library a lot. Right now I've got Open Range.)
Last Cuss Word Uttered: Probably "dumb ass". I also tend to mutter the F-bomb under my breath, but I really try to not say it out loud except to certain people I trust enough to hear it from my lips. (And there are people I do trust that much, but don't really feel right saying the F-bomb around. It's like, I don't know, uttering the Lord's name in the presence of a nun.)
Last Beverage Drank: Didn't I answer this already? This is the weirdest quiz ever.
Last Phone Call: The Wife.
Last TV Show: Scrubs, which we taped on Tuesday and watched Thursday.
Last Time Showered: This morning.
Last Shoes Worn: Again, didn't I just answer this?
Last CD Played: The soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back.
Last Item Bought: A bunch of food today.
Last Download: Hmmmm...I don't do much downloading, really. If I'm going to own content, I want to own something physical. I'm just not that wild about paying for a transfer of ones-and-zeroes to my computer that might completely disappear if my hard drive ever goes "Kablooey". I know that I'll most likely be forced into doing so over the next however many years, but I'm still not wild about it.
Last Annoyance: Grocery store shoppers who, although the aisle is wide enough for two carts to pass one another, steadfastedly insist on walking down the exact middle of the aisle with their carts. That annoys me greatly.
Last Thing Written: I've started noodling about with some poetry in a leather-backed journal of mine, and I've started jotting the beginnings of a script about life in the supermarket world.
Last Key Used: My apartment deadbolt key. (This is without question the strangest blog-quiz question I've ever seen.)
Last Sleep: I dozed off while feeding Little Quinn about half an hour ago.
Last Ice Cream Eaten: The Store's brand of cookie-dough ice cream, night before last.
Last Chair Sat In: Uhhh...the chair at my computer, duh! (That question almost topped the "Last key used" one from three questions back. But not quite.)
Last Webpage Visited: Assuming we're not talking about blogs, I was browsing eBay a bit earlier.

Well, I'm not sure if I liked that quiz or not. It's got some goofy stuff in there, eh?

* I'm kidding about Texas. Even though you guys gave the world two Presidents Bush, Tom DeLay, and the Dallas Cowboys, you guys also have some wonderful music and barbecue that'll make you cry. So I'll call it a wash.

Support your local blogger!

Just a quasi-regular reminder that I sell stuff on eBay from time to time. I've been weeding out the CD collection lately, jettisoning film scores I no longer listen to and classical recordings I don't much care for; I've also listed some of the books I accumulated when I was studying philosophy. The link to my sale stuff is in the sidebar, so go have a look. All items are guaranteed to be of high quality and smell of mint!

(OK, they don't smell of mint. But I'm not selling my junk -- high quality stuff abounds!)

Friday Random Ten (the Saturday edition)

It's a gorgeous Spring morning in Buffalo! No, really. We tend to have four or five really gorgeous days each Spring, and this appears to be one of them. Much of the snow from one week ago has melted off (leaving much of the ground a muddy quagmire), but according to The Doppler ZX-9000 Accuweather StormCenter DragonSlayer Forecasting Genius Guy on TV last night, we're actually not supposed to receive much precipitation -- if any at all -- for the next several days, so maybe we'll get the ground dried up somewhat.

Anyhoo, I haven't done a "Random Ten" in a while, so I guess I'll do one right now, because it seems to me that "blogging memes" exist for just days like this: when I want to stick some new content up here without thinking too much about it. Because, you know, thinking's hard and stuff.

1. "Jar Jar's Run-in with Sebulba" (from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace)
2. Java Jive (by the Manhattan Transfer)
3. "Willow Weep For Me" (from Frank Sinatra sings for Only the Lonely, which is one of those "I don't care what kind of music you listen to, if you don't own this your record collection sucks" albums.)
4. "The Time is Now (selection II)" (from Millennium, by Mark Snow)
5. "The Twentieth-Century-Fox Fanfare" by Alfred Newman (from one of the Star Wars soundtracks)
6. "The Raiders March" (from Raiders of the Lost Ark)
7. "Reading Room" (from Road to Perdition, by Thomas Newman)
8. "Niobe's Run" (from The Matrix Revolutions, by Don Davis -- really good score, that. Maybe someday I'll bother watching the movie, but since my one attempt at watching The Matrix Reloaded ended up with me sleeping soundly in my armchair, it may be a while.)
9. "Nothing to Trade" (from Road to Perdition, again. It always amazes me that randomizing my music program still ends up with two tracks from the same album in the top ten, every time.)
10. "Trilogy" (by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I just checked out their "Very Best Of..." album last week from the library and ripped it, mainly because I dig "Karn Evil 9".)

It's just now occurred to me that even though classical and Celtic music together form over half of my music listening, I have very little of either genre on my hard drive. I'm not sure why this is.

Resist the temptation, I must....

So I'm walking through The Store today, and when walking past the book and magazine aisle, I notice...the novelization of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Knowing that for five days a week I'm going to be in the presence of a book that will answer every question I have, before the movie comes out, is going to be a serious, serious test of my willpower.

Wish me luck....

Torture Scalzi Week

Actually, he calls it "Reader Appreciation Week", and during that week John Scalzi allows his readers to fill a comment thread with posting suggestions, some of which he answers and some of which he ignores completely. It's certainly an idea worth ripping off! Go give him a suggestion or two. My own suggestion to him is as follows:

While I'm sure you'll be proud of Athena no matter what she ends up doing in life, I'm sure there are things you dream about her doing and things you really hope she doesn't do. So, what profession (or professions) do you secretly pray that she never ends up working in? (I'm assuming legal professions here, of course.)

I think it's BRILLIANT!

Craig points out a pretty nifty damned idea: one of Buffalo's elected officials thinks that, even in the face of fiscal calamity so bad that Charmin recently donated toilet paper to the County so that they could have some in the bathrooms in the County Building, Buffalo should build a new stadium downtown for the Bills. Hearing this idea, I'm reminded of that scene in Roxanne when the Steve Martin character comes upon two of his townsfolk who share with him some supremely goofy idea, and Martin walks off saying something like, "Why, I think it's brilliant! I think it's great! Dare I call it genius? It's like he saw the idea there, ripe on the tree, and he reached out and plucked it and put it in his pocket! And I was there! I saw it happen!"

Of course, I don't think this is a good idea. In fact, I think it's a colossally stupid idea, and I'm not much impressed by the fact that this is coming not from the Bills but from some legislator. The Bills' lease at their current home, Ralph Wilson Stadium, is up in seven years, and this guy is saying that since they'll probably make noises about a new stadium, we should head them off at the pass or something like that.

Hogwash. Nonsense. Bullshit. In that order.

Ralph Wilson Stadium (hereafter "RWS") is a fine facility, even for being thirty years old. It has plenty of parking, it's easy to get to, its sightlines are outstanding. What it probably doesn't offer are all the stadium "bells and whistles" that modern stadiums are supposed to have: lots of luxury seating and whatnot. But the thing is, the stadium can be refurbished to build more of that kind of thing (which they already did back in 1998), and I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to doing that again. Green Bay recently refurbished Lambeau Field, after all. It can be done.

But that -- refurbishing and rejuvenating RWS -- is as far as I am willing to go. A totally new stadium, in downtown? As they say downstate where they're trying to build a stadium of their own (with state tax dollars, meaning that I -- who will in all likelihood never attend a NYJets game -- get to help pay for it), "Fuhgeddaboudit!" Here are my reasons for this:

:: Parking. Stadiums require tons of it, and downtown Buffalo already has a parking glut. A stadium would require tons more parking, which would choke off real estate that I'd rather see developed into parks, businesses, and residences.

:: Economic spinoff. Can't we for all time bury the myth that giant, glitzy sports arenas spark all manner of economic development? It just isn't true. In downtown Buffalo, we've built a really nice minor-league baseball stadium (back when Buffalo was still seriously in the running for getting an MLB franchise), and it hasn't sparked development on its surrounding streets. Neither has HSBC Arena, built a decade ago for the Sabres (and this season maintained by the County without a single dime of revenue coming in from hockey games). Economic development in a place like downtown Buffalo is going to be the result of two things, as I see it: housing for people who want to live in a city, and a more friendly small-business environment that will encourage entrepreneurship. A downtown stadium does none of these things.

:: Frequency of use. How many times would a downtown stadium be used? Well, each NFL team hosts two preseason games and eight regular season games. That's ten. And if the Bills are the top seed in the playoffs, there are two more potential games for them to host. We're up to twelve. (I suppose that if the SuperGlitzy Stadium was domed, it could even host a Super Bowl some year, which would bring the total number of uses up to thirteen.) Then, maybe there would be a handful of large concerts or the like. I think that charitably we might be able to see the SuperGlitzyDome used twenty times a year, tops.

And remember: there will still be a big stadium sitting there to the south, in Orchard Park, not being used. What happens to that land? Does the old RWS still get used once in a while? Is it bulldozed? How expensive would that be?

:: Ralph Wilson. The Bills' owner is, as far as I am concerned, a class act. He's had more than enough opportunities to take the Bills to someplace willing to roll out the carpet for an NFL franchise, and he's shown more backbone and community loyalty than, say, Art Modell, who stabbed his community in the back as soon as the dollar signs were plentiful enough. But the problem with Wilson is this: he is in his 80s. If he dies, the fate of the Bills will be thrown into serious doubt, especially if there is no local buyer wealthy enough to take on the team and keep it here.

For me, the choice is simple. If the Bills need more luxury seat revenue, then figure out a way to build more luxury seats onto RWS. But that's it. This community cannot afford to build a new venue, and either keep or destroy the old one. And if it comes down to one of those "Build me the stadium or the team's out of here" scenarios, then I say without cheer but also without hesitation: "Long Live the Los Angeles Bills."

Hurg!

That's an expletive we used to deploy on rec.music.movies, back in the day when Usenet was good for more than porn spam and whatnot. It applies now because I've managed to post just one thing here the last two days, which was mostly not my fault: yesterday, for some reason, I was completely incapable of getting into Blogger. Ah well, here I am again.

So, what's new?

Where's the "Wish you were here" card?

Sean points out (in the middle of a grab-bag linkage post that's got some other cool stuff, so go have a peek) Postsecret, a photo-blog that consists of postcards sent to the address of Postsecret's blogger. The catch is that the postcards are (a) anonymous, and (b) feature confessions of deep, dark secrets. There's some whacko stuff, some icky stuff, and a few that are kind of haunting. This is the type of thing that fuels my writerly imagination.

EDIT: I've changed the date of this post so I don't have a single post bumping an entire day's worth of stuff off the main page, just for now. A small thing, perhaps, but it's the small things that bug us most of all, right?

Coolness Elsewhere....

Time for a grab-bag of linkage while I work on some other stuff:

:: Patrick of Fantasy Hotlist has an interview with writer L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

:: David Brooks says that liberals' problem is that they're not "philosophical" enough; Digby says he's full of bird poop. Advantage: Digby.

:: What's worse than a woman than having to endure a root canal? Having to endure a root canal while already pregnant. Oy. I can imagine the conversation that will ensue the first time Kellie's child, someday years hence, asks the fateful question, "What was it like when I was in your belly?"

:: Mr. Sun on this spring's TV lineup:

Diagnosis: Fervor. Randall Terry interviews various people and calls them butchers and murderers. Family-friendly.

Joan of AARP. Bea Arthur stars as a frightenting, nasty, strident old woman fighting against privatization of Social Security. Andy Griffith guest stars in steamy cameo as recently widowed Matlock.

Vatican Idol. You help pick the next pope. Simon: "If I'm being honest, you're just not holy enough."

:: GAAHHHH! Cute couple alert! Stop the cuteness! (Kidding aside, that's a nice picture. I love seeing what the faces behind the words in Blogistan look like.)

:: Darth Swank reviews Sin City.

:: John Scalzi has lost a cat. Condolences to him and his family. The major downside to living with cats is that you inevitably lose them. It's therefore a good thing that the major upside to living with cats is, well, living with cats.

How long can THIS keep up?

Michelle is posting again. I keep wishing she'd move into Blogistan full-time, since she is (a) a big Star Wars fan and (b) smarter than me.

(But really, comparing reading Byzantium's Shores to eating marshmallow Peeps? That's the best simile someone as well read as Michelle could come up with? Ewwwwwwwww! But, a compliment's a compliment, and I'm blushing now. Which reminds me, that's another benefit of beards -- they conceal blushing, somewhat. Of course, that benefit is rendered inoperative if one's blushing is also accompanied by waving one's hands in front of one's face and going, "Oh, nnooooo...", but luckily, I never do that. (A claim which I can make since, to my knowledge, none of my coworkers read this blog.))

Most...addictive...game...ever....

Slickball. This thing is freaking evil. Imagine Marble Madness, but apparently with Myst-like gizmos that have to be activated before you can make progress. At least I think that's what's going on here, since I kept dying very early in the damn game.

AGGGHHHHH!!!

Exploring the CD Collection, #11

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
original score composed and conducted by John Williams
performed by the London Symphony Orchestra

(This is the first post in what should end up being a series of six posts in a mini-sequence within the ongoing "Exploring the CD Collection" series. If all goes according to plan, there will be six of these when I'm done, culminating sometime in May with my thoughts on the score to Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I will be listening anew to each score in the Star Wars series and posting thoughts on those listenings.)

I can remember a time in my life when the music from Star Wars was not a big part of things, but that time in my life is really brief, being confined to my first six years. John Williams's Star Wars music isn't the first music that I remember, but it's the first orchestral music I distinctly remember. (My pre-SW memories are a mishmash of country and Broadway stuff, a lot of which I have come to love dearly as I explore those areas.)

The film opened when I was five, but since we didn't get to see it until the fall of 1977 (or late summer), I might well have been six by the time we saw it. Or maybe I was still five, since my birthday is in September. Ach well, who knows. Anyway, being a dumb-ass first grader, I didn't like it the first time I saw it - - in fact, I actually fell asleep watching it, and I didn't start to grok Star Wars until my sister basically wore me down with her own enthusiasm for it. I agreed to go see it again with her, and that was that. I've carried the mortal wound ever since.

Shortly thereafter, in a record store in Portland, Oregon (where we lived at the time), my older sister bought the soundtrack album. It was a double-LP release in a gatefold cover in black with a giant Star Wars logo on front and a big picture of Darth Vader on the back, if memory serves. My sister played the hell out of those two records, and a few years later when her own Star Wars fandom subsided, she gave them to me. Strangely, though, she gave them to me after I had bought my first record with my own money, from my own allowance: the soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back, so I actually didn't get to know the music from Star Wars really, really well until after I already knew the music from TESB really, really well.

Anyway, I played those records into the ground for a while, and then my musical interests went in other directions, and I didn't return to SW all that often, except as mood-music for when I sat around late at night writing my grand bit of SW fanfic. College came, and I stopped listening to SW entirely, until I bought that OST album on cassette. Truth to tell, I did not own any SW music on CD until late 1993, when a 4-disc boxed set of music from the films was released. I still own that set, and though I rarely play it anymore in favor of the 1997 deluxe CDs released in conjunction with the Special Editions, it occupies a place of honor on my CD shelf and I'll probably insist that it be buried with me when I fall under a Sith lightsaber.

And of course I have ripped the SW scores to my hard drive for easy, point-and-click listening when I want. So I've heard the scores (of the original trilogy, at least) on LP, cassette, one CD release, then another CD release, and as MP3s on my hard drive. That's devotion, folks.

As I've become older and as I've learned more and more about music, I've still returned occasionally to the Star Wars scores, which have become old, reliable friends to me. Playing them every so often gives me a feeling not unlike listening to a Beethoven Symphony after months of, well, other stuff: there's something relieving about coming back to a long-known masterpiece after a long while of playing new music, other music, music that might be as good but not as well known. And the experience almost always finding something new in John Williams's work.

So, what shall I say about this, the first-ever score to a Star Wars movie? Much has been written about Williams's use of the leitmotif method in his music for these films (including this post of mine), so I don't have anything new to add on that front. What struck me on this listen was the way some of Williams's prime compositional influences can be detected, but not in the way that people usually claim.

It seems to me that a lot of the standard clichés about John Williams's work don't really apply. To mention just two: The orchestration in a couple of very brief spots within the score really does sound like Holst's "Mars: The Bringer of War" from The Planets, and a couple of bits of action music - - notably in the Death Star escape sequences - - have a Korngold-esque sound. Williams blatantly blends a Korngold-esque march in the Throne Room scene with an Elgarian one, and there are more modernistic moments during the Tatooine scenes that hark back to Stravinsky. Williams combines a lot of styles in this score, so much so that he's often accused of doing "pastiche" at best or simply ripping off his forebears at worst. I don't think that either claim does justice to his work here.

Williams, it is true, has never been much of an innovator. His is a musical voice that looks backward rather than forward. For some that is a criticism, but it's always been that way: while Wagner was breaking musical boundaries all over the place, his contemporary Brahms was staunchly looking back to classical form. While Stravinsky was causing riots with The Rite of Spring, Rachmaninov was looking back to the height of Russian Romanticism. Many other examples abound. What John Williams has always done is blend disparate elements into a unique musical voice (and it is unique: to the experienced ear with this music, John Williams is as instantly recognizable a composer as you'll find).

As far as I am concerned, two remarkable sequences of music in Star Wars: ANH show where Williams breaks free of simple pastiche into something all his own. The music underscoring the dogfight between the Millennium Falcon and the four TIE fighters takes on a punching sound that stands apart from the rest of the score, nearly perfectly mirroring the rapid-fire editing of the sequence. When Roger Ebert once asked George Lucas to pick a "signature shot" from one of his films to represent what he is as a filmmaker, Lucas picked the entirety of this sequence, since he values editing above all else. There are few action sequences I've seen that more perfectly blend editing with the music.

The other such sequence comes during the Battle of Yavin (the Rebels' attack on the Death Star). The battle as a whole features some very thrilling music, some of it militaristic, some of it not. The score in this sequence does so much to add to the kinetic energy as the fighters first leave the Yavin moon and then pick up speed as they attack the Death Star, but that's not the part that always stands out for me. For a score often derided as being merely derivative, the passage that leads up to Darth Vader's shooting down Biggs stands out, as muted trumpets peal out dissonant chords over screaming strings and woodwinds that provide rhythm. That passage, brief as it is, always makes me shiver, and it's a passage that I've yet to find presaged in Korngold, Herrmann, or anywhere else.

Of course, all of that would be irrelevant if John Williams did not possess an extraordinary gift for melody. In addition to the Star Wars Main Theme, which is probably the most famous single cinematic melody of the last thirty years, the score also boasts Leia's Theme and Ben Kenobi's Theme, both of which are benchmark themes of the overall saga, almost instantly recognizable as Star Wars music - - in fact, what was originally Ben Kenobi's Theme has become more of a "Light Side of the Force" motif as the saga has developed through the years.

Star Wars is one of the warhorses of the film music world, and with good reason.

Next week: The Empire Strikes Back.

Shaving is for the weak!

Via MeFi I saw this article about "wet shaving" yesterday. Apparently, to get a really good shave, you're supposed to make sure your whiskers are good and moist by at least wetting them with a hot, wet towel or by waiting to shave until after showering. And you're supposed to use a brush made from badger hair to apply high-quality shaving lotion. And you're supposed to use a high-quality razor, as opposed to a disposable. And you're supposed to...ach, screw it. Just do what I did: Grow a beard. I've never found that the beard is any more "itchy" than my face was when I shaved regularly -- in fact, it's a good deal less itchy, except for when I trim its edges slightly, and when I do that, the itchiness lasts only a couple of hours. I keep the beard trimmed fairly close, but this affects the beard, not the skin of my face, which remains nicely itch-free. That's what it's mainly about, as are nearly all of my fashion decisions: comfort. I don't have any great theory that my beard makes me look particularly masculine, but I have the factual knowledge that it spares me a particularly irritating morning ritual.

(Well, OK, I do have the wistful hope that my combinbation of long hair and beard makes me look like a cast extra from The Lord of the Rings. But at least I admit that the hope is wistful.)

By the way, apparently some guy decided that he wanted to test the idea that a beard keeps one's face warmer in winter, by shaving off half of his beard. That someone would willingly go through a winter looking like that in the name of science either speaks well of science, or poorly of that someone.

And now I'll bludgeon your childhood to death with a tire iron....

Geez. Somehow, Byzantium's Shores is the number three result for "George Lucas raped my childhood". Suck it, fanboys. I'm the original fanboy. Pinheads. Take your Matrix and your Batman and suck cold, hard Death.

OK, I think that's out of my system. Move along!

Stuff to read....

It's the first Sunday of the month, which means that a new chapter is up over at The Promised King. It's Chapter Seven, for those of you who aren't keeping count. Go read!

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

In a first for planetary astronomers, a photograph has been captured of a planet orbiting a distant star:

Details here.

(Oh, and boo, hiss!)

SHHHHH!

Scott Spiegelberg has a fascinating post about the "quietest room on Earth", a specially-designed "anechoic chamber" in a sound laboratory in the Twin Cities area. This kind of thing is just fascinating.

I can't tell you what the quietest room on Earth sounds like, but here's what it looks like. Which makes me think that Aaron and Krista may want to look into renting that room out once in a while, since now they have their "Little Screamer"....

Sunday Burst of Weirdness (Ten-Year-Old Humor Edition)

OK, I admit it, I was in a very juvenile mood late the other night and it suddenly occured to me that after the debut of products like the iPod and the iShuffle and parodies like the iProduct, I wondered what I wound find if I used Google to search for, well, naughty words with an 'i' stuck on the front.

Which is how I found this. Sadly, the site isn't functional now, but there's enough there that I know I'd be there a-clinking away if it was. There really are times when the sound of a flushing toilet is just about the funniest thing in the Universe.

(No, it's probably not safe for work. Duh. Yes, I'm ashamed of my flirtation with Beavis and Butthead humor here, and promise to look for weirdness next week that's more reflective of my adult nature. Or something like that. Hey, "doodies"!)

Well, that was sure a nice two months....

The resident objectivist weirdo has returned to the FilmScoreMonthly message boards, as is his wont -- he goes away for a month or two, and then returns for a spate of posting in which he acts deliberately confrontational in a bizarre rite of self-validation or something. Anyway, in a thread devoted to the passing of Pope John Paul II, one particularly annoying poster weighs in thusly:

I know I'm gonna get rapped in the outh for this but:

DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THERE IS A GOD?

Come on for Pete's sake, what on Earth gives you faith in this out dated premise?

The Pope was a man, just as you or I are. That's all we can ever be. He is not with God, just as all his life, God was not with him.

(Keep in mind that a fairly rigidly-enforced rule on the FSM boards is that even in the off-topic forum, discussion of politics and religion is forbidden. Expressing sympathy or mourning for the Pope is OK by the rules, discussing or attacking the Catholic faith is not.)

Now, that's enough of a rude slap in the face to begin with, but luckily for us, Our Objectivist Hero is not to be outdone:

Not from me. Beyond what you wrote, religionists such as the Pope stand for self-sacrifice and earthly suffering. That they do so based on faith [literally non-sense] is profane--and exposes them as moral charlatans.

Yet another example of why I refuse to truck with Objectivists -- with one notable exception, every single Objectivist I have ever encountered thinks nothing of behaving like this. They've got all the answers, and by gum they're going to offer those answers without regard for anything so prosaic as simple manners. Just change their Holy Book from Atlas Shrugged to a Bible, and they're almost like Jehovah's Witnesses.

One last thing....

...about the Terri Schiavo thing. I wrote here that there have been questionable moral choices made on each side of the dispute, and I still believe that. But where I can see the moral logic behind most of the choices made on each side, even if I don't agree with them, I just can't understand Michael Schiavo's insistence on cremation and burial of Terri Schiavo far away from her parents. That just seems spiteful to me.

Spread the bloggy love!

Read anything particularly good in Blogistan lately? Then consider submitting the link to what you read to the "Smarter Than I" Carnival, for just that reason. The only rule seems to be that you can't submit your own stuff, which seems perfectly reasonable. He's taking submissions until tomorrow at 3:00 Pacific Time, so pick out a particularly good post from some blog and send it in.

Link via PZ Myers.

The Count of Monty Crisco

Today's Buffalo News has a nifty profile of character actor William Sadler, who has appeared in tons of movies and has shown lots of range -- he was the main bad guy in Die Hard 2 and the convict Haywood in The Shawshank Redemption (the one with the slight stutter who correctly picks which one of the "new fish" will break down in tears in the film's first, but not last, truly memorable scene). Check it out. (Sadler is a WNY native, by the way, hailing from Orchard Park. Which also happens to be my current stomping grounds. Coolness abounds in Buffalo!)

UPDATE: The profile of Sadler has a sidebar listing some of his prominent roles. The description of his Shawshank character makes me wonder just how well Jeff Simon remembers the movie, but there it is. And in its usual clod-like fashion when it comes to its Web operation, the Buffalo News doesn't link the sidebar from the main article on the site. Come on, guys. You could get a tech-savvy fourteen-year-old to put your paper's website together better than this.

Springtime in Buffalo, revisited

The other day I wrote about how spring is Buffalo's worst season. Lest anyone care to dispute me on this point, let me present photographic proof. This is the view that greeted us outside our living room window on this fine April Sunday morning:

That's a gorgeous view on, say, November 10. On April 3, not so much.

Can I get the Giant Hurt Ball with extra hurt?

The following is a transcript of a customer service call once fielded in a call center in a galaxy far, far away.

OPERATOR: Good morning! Thank you for calling the Geonosis Spaceyards Customer Service Hotline. This is Operator THX-1138 speaking. How can I help you today?

CALLER: I am calling about a recent purchase I made.

OPERATOR: Are you reporting a problem with your purchase, sir?

CALLER: I am.

OPERATOR: And may I have your Account Number, sir?

CALLER: It is UIY-2249.

OPERATOR: Thank you. Please wait while I bring up your account. (typing on keyboard heard) Ah, yes. I see you bought the Eludium-Q Spherical Space Habitat, and that you chose the Extra Armor Plating option. Very good, sir. Was there a problem with your Spherical Space Habitat, sir?

CALLER: Yes.

OPERATOR: Can you describe the nature of the problem, sir?

CALLER: It exploded.

OPERATOR: I'm sorry, sir. Did you say that your Spherical Space Habitat exploded?

CALLER: The destruction was complete.

OPERATOR: That's odd. Our Spherical Space Habitats are not supposed to explode. May I inquire as to what system your Habitat was in when it exploded, sir? If it was located in one of the Hazardous Systems as listed in the Instruction Manual for your Habitat, we are not liable for damages, as noted in Section 94, Volume 18, Paragraph 6-b of the Imperial Code.

CALLER: It was orbiting the planet Yavin.

OPERATOR: Yavin? Let me look that system up, sir. (more clicking of a computer keyboard) Ah, Yavin. Gaseous giant planet, but no known natural hazards listed on our database. Very odd...just a minute, there's another note here. Please hold.

(Music plays for about a minute.)

OPERATOR: Sir, I see that the planet Yavin was recently the scene of a battle between the Imperial Starfleet and the Rebel Alliance. Surveillance craft have reported a significant amount of debris in the system, and a large amount of residual radiation. I am going to have to get my Supervisor, sir. Please hold.

(More music plays as the caller is put on hold.)

SUPERVISOR: Good morning, Sir. I am Supervisor TK-421. I have just accessed the private information on your account, that your first Operator was unable to read. How are you today, Senator Palpatine?

CALLER: I am Emperor now, and I dissolved the Senate.

SUPERVISOR: Ah. I will change that information on your account, and may I say, congratulations on your promotion! Now, I am told that your Spherical Space Habitat experienced a catastrophic immolation event while orbiting the planet Yavin. Now sir, I have to ask this question for legal reasons: were you using your Spherical Space Habitat in any of the ways listed in the Instruction Manual as being unrecommended?

CALLER: I didn't read that page.

SUPERVISOR: Ah. Senator, I mean, Emperor, you really should read the instructions on all major purchases before use. On Page 9,842 of the Manual you will find a list of Unrecommended Uses for a Spherical Space Habitat. Such uses include: Transport Vehicle for Performing Popular Musicians, Transport Vehicle for Dangerous Creatures, Hunting Lodge, Space Slug Attractor Device, Spice Smuggling, Temple for Hutt Worship, and Intimidating Battle Station. Can I assume, sir, that you attempted to use your Spherical Space Habitat as an Intimidating Battle Station?

CALLER: I did.

SUPERVISOR: Ah, I see. Now, the good news, sir, is that we have recently completed design work on our Spherical Space Habitat 2.0, which can be used as an Intimidating Battle Station.

CALLER: Are all the thermal exhaust ports fully shielded now?

SUPERVISOR: They are, sir. That's the main difference. That and the chairs are cushier. Since you are a preferred customer, I can offer you a special discount on a Spherical Space Habitat 2.0, complete with Green Ray of Death Blast Cannon. And since you're one of our better customers, I am prepared to offer you, free of extra charge, an Intimidating Throne Room atop a high tower with a commanding view of your Space Habitat's surface, and Demon-Drop Bottomless Shaft overlooking your Habitat's Reactor Core. Can I interest you in that today, sir?

CALLER: Yes. I will take one.

SUPERVISOR: Excellent! And to what system would you like that delivered, sir?

CALLER: Endor.

SUPERVISOR: Excellent choice, sir. Let me type this all in. (more typing goes on) And how will you be paying for this, sir?

CALLER: Paying?

SUPERVISOR: Yes, sir. As I noted, your use of your Spherical Space Habitat 1.0 as a Battle Station voids your warranty, and you are not eligible for free replacement.

CALLER: My discount will be one hundred percent.

SUPERVISOR: Now sir, I can't do that, I'm sorry to say.

CALLER: My discount will be one hundred percent.

SUPERVISOR: Sir, as I said, I cannot authorize that.

CALLER: Oh, really?

SUPERVISOR: I'm sorry, sir. But I am offering you a substantial discount and…er…ack…sir, I am having trouble breathing. Uh...er...ACK!...can I please...get...ACCCKKK!...another...operator...GASSSSPP! (sounds of unintelligible wheezing, followed by a crunching of bone and something large slumping to the floor)

SUPERVISOR #2: Ummm...hello, sir. I am Supervisor TK-422. Let me just review the information my predecessor put in for you. (whispering to someone else) Get him out of here before he smells! (to CALLER) Uh, sir, you know what, it wouldn't have been that hard for us to throw in shielding for those thermal exhaust ports on the first one. I apologize for the inconvenience, and your new habitat is on us. Will that be all right, sir?

CALLER: For today, yes. Don't make me call you for a third one of these.

SUPERVISOR: We won't, sir. And you know what, since you've been such a great customer, I'm going to throw in for no extra charge an energy shield that we will put in place around your new Spherical Space Habitat 2.0 while we are building it. Trust me, nothing will get through and threaten your new Space Habitat 2.0! You can live by the Geonosis Guarantee.

CALLER: I hope so...for your sake.

(Click as call ends)

LESSON: The customer may not always be right, but he just may have the ability to choke you to death from the other side of the Galaxy.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, there will be a lot of gratuitous and geeky stuff like this between now and the end of May.)

Is this like how Olivier and Kenneth Branagh made movies using the same script?

This is funny. I got a big kick out of yesterday's Get Fuzzy, but since I don't usually read Fox Trot, I had no idea that both strips used virtually the same script yesterday. I assume this was an April Fool's day thing, and it's the kind of April Fool's thing I like, in that it's not based on being mean or embarrassing to another person. It reminds me of a more widespread funnies-page April Fool's joke, the Great April Fool's Switcheroonie, when a number of strips were drawn by the artists of some other strip (for instance, Hagar the Horrible drawn by the guy who draws Non Sequitur). Very clever.

(For my money, the joke used yesterday in Get Fuzzy and Fox Trot is funnier as a Get Fuzzy joke. It's probably the use of the word "piehole" that does it.)

Me Ho, you Jane?

I confess that even though I consider myself a good liberal, I've never much liked Jane Fonda. I've enjoyed a few of her performances -- Nine to Five, mostly, although they could have cast anyone in that third-wheel of a role, seeing as how Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton are pretty much the whole show (well, them and Dabney Coleman) and On Golden Pond, pretty much -- but as my dislike of her basically stems from those annoying workout videos of hers, the fact that she appointed herself head-cheerleader when the Atlanta Braves (for a short while the Greatest Force for Evil in American Sports, before that title went back to the Dallas Cowboys and thence to the New England Stupid Patriots) were beating my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates two damn years in a row in the National League Championship Series, and that little jaunt she took to North Vietnam. Granted, I was all of two or something when she did that, but it's not one of those things that has a statute of limitations, you know?

All of which is preamble to linking this purported index to Ms. Fonda's upcoming book, which I found hilarious. Check it out. Link via BookSlut.

A growing economy? Just two hours down I-90....

I'd really like to start being able to link stories like this about Buffalo one of these days, but for now, it's heartening for Upstate New Yorkers to see that Syracuse continues to demonstrate healthy job growth coupled with a decline in public-sector jobs. They continue to lost manufacturing jobs, but that's the only part of their private sector that's still bleeding jobs. So, why isn't anyone amongst Buffalo's "power elite" taking notice and wondering what Syracuse is doing that we aren't? Whenever we hear about someplace else in Upstate New York, it's invariably something along the lines of "Here's how things are in Rochester, and they're doing bad too". Well, it's another hour past Rochester to Syracuse. Let's see what they're doing, since their bag of tricks seems to actually be working.

In other Buffalo-related stuff, Craig took a walk around the Elmwood strip recently -- I really need to get to Elmwood more often -- and he took a number of pictures of development going on there. I particularly like that the new Lexington Co-op is being built right up to the sidewalk, preserving Elmwood's walkability factor. (And looking at the first photo in Craig's post, I note again that Buffalo's tallest and most prominent building is also the dullest-looking damn building in our skyline. Lord. Let me know, readers: do any of you live in cities where your most prominent building looks as bad as ours?)

Who will be the next death watch?

Is anyone besides me getting tired of the constant morbid stuff headlining the news lately? For something like the last two weeks (and probably more), the number one and number two stories on the evening news have been the Terri Schiavo death watch and the Pope John Paul II death watch, or vice versa. It seems kind of weird that for a "Culture of Life", we're awfully focused on death. (But then, an end to both stories will probably herald a return to Top Story Status of the damn Michael Jackson trial. Maybe it's time to just stop watching the news altogether.)

Anyway, James Wolcott and Matthew Yglesias point out that inevitably the passing of the Pope will be politicized -- in fact, James points out that FOX News already tried doing so, but had to stop the revolution seeing as how at that point the Pope wasn't, you know, actually dead. If the Right does seize upon John Paul II as a great fallen conservative leader, I wonder how they'll explain things like his steadfast condemnation of the Iraq war. Yes, the Pope was anti-abortion and anti-homosexual, but he had other beliefs that line up more with the Left than with the Right. So I guess we're in for a lot of cherry-picking from the man's life. I can't wait.

(For the record, I'm not Catholic and am generally ambivalent about John Paul II in particular and the Papacy in general. I dislike a lot of the positions he took, and I generally find the whole idea of the position of Pontiff to be a bit odd, especially after my readings of history which indicate that more than a few Popes weren't so much chosen by God as chosen by particularly strong European monarchs.)

Yesterday at The Store, the cafe TV was as always tuned to FOX News, and I caught one bit of hilarity while I was eating lunch. Some talking head was describing a time when John Paul II held a Mass at Shea Stadium in New York City. The FOX talking head went on to describe Shea Stadium as a baseball stadium, "but not the one where the Yankees play...there's another baseball team that plays there, uh...." Luckily for the FOX talking head, someone was able to lean over and supply him with the name of that other New York baseball team.

Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!

Wow, is this ever cool: an MP3 directory of lectures by the late Richard Feynman, a legendary figure in late-20th century science in general and physics and particular (as well as safecracking). I'd love to see more of this kind of thing on the Web.

(via Mr. Modulator)

Western NY: Great for Kids!

If you're not raising your children in the Buffalo Niagara region, then you're a bad parent. Take that, all you parents from Kansas City!

Jen and Alan provide details on the great things there are to do with kids in this area. I have some favorites, myself.

In terms of restaurants, Buffalo has a ton of family-friendly eating establishments. Favorites of ours include Pizza Plant in Williamsville (where, in addition to crayons, the kid can get a wad of pizza dough to play with while waiting for food) and Taffy's in our own hometown of Orchard Park. Taffy's is just your basic burgers-and-ice cream joint, but it's situated on one of the Southtowns' busier intersections, so it makes for good car-watching, and its seating consists of a whole bunch of those covered picnic benches that "rock" back and forth on two tracks. Fun place.

In terms of Buffalo shopping malls, the Galleria is the big one, and it's got plenty of stores of interest to kids. The Boulevard Mall in Amherst is a bit better for small kids, since it has a carousel and an enclosed play area that has a bunch of play-items made out of this shiny-rubber stuff. This area in the food court is always packed with kids. (Of course, none of Buffalo's malls approaches Syracuse's Carousel Center, which is still the best mall I've ever been in short of the Mall of America itself.)

The region's best-kept secret, as far as free places to take the kids is concerned, has to be the Charles Burchfield Nature and Art Center on Union Road in West Seneca. This is a wonderful little park, partly dedicated to the art of Charles Burchfield (a prominent water-colorist who lived in West Seneca for a time), a beautiful set of park slides, and a set of nature trails that wind back into some surprisingly dense woods and down to the side of Cayuga Creek, whose water is generally shallow enough for wading (in late summer, the water gets so low you can wade all the way across and not get wet past your knees) and swift enough to be fun to throw or skip rocks. This is one of our absolute favorite spots in the area -- and it's completely free to go there. Give it a shot, folks. On a warm day, bring a picnic lunch. You'll be glad you did.

April Fool's Day, gone horribly awry

Lynn Sislo links The Worst April Fool's Day Hoaxes Ever, some of which are truly eye-popping in their awfulness. What struck me is that a couple of them were perpetrated by officials or affiliates of Saddam Hussein's regime. Looking at the apparent sense of humor that existed within that regime, a lot of stuff about recent Iraqi history starts to become clear.

Here's Number Ten:

On April 1, 2003, as thousands of American-led coalition troops stormed across Iraq, the Iraqi ambassador to Russia, Abbas Khalaf Kunfuth, held a press conference in Moscow. Many were expecting him to announce that Iraq conceded defeat. Instead Kunfuth chose this moment to hold a gag press conference. Holding up a piece of paper that he identified as a news flash from Reuters, he read aloud from it: "The Americans have accidentally fired a nuclear missile into British forces, killing seven." Immediately the room full of reporters went silent with shock. Then Kunfuth grinned and shouted 'April Fools!' Only a few days after this unexpected moment of levity, the Iraqi government completely collapsed.

Read the rest. And here's a list of more successful April Fool's Day pranks.

Springtime in Buffalo (and a Little Quinn update)

We had a couple of days of nicely temperate weather here in Buffalo this week, with temps in the upper 50s and even into the 60s yesterday. We cooled off a bit today, but it was still pleasant. What always gets me about Spring in Buffalo is the way everybody gets so hopeful on the very first day that the mercury hits the 60 mark that Spring is actually here, that it will stay warm, that snow is officially done, that it's time to plant without fear of frost, et cetera. And those hopes always come, despite the fact that those hopes are always dashed.

The sad fact is that Spring is Buffalo's worst season, by far.

That may sound counterintuitive, referring to a city legendary (and unfairly so) for bad winters, but as I and many other Buffalonians have noted many times, our winters aren't that bad (in fact, they're routinely not even the worst winters in Upstate New York), and besides, we expect winter to be a lot of snow and cold. I really wish we'd embrace our winters and market them better, in fact. We know what's coming each year, and we're generally fine with it.

Our summers are very nice as well: the humidity, while higher than, say, Arizona's, never really reaches the level of elemental dampness that afflicts the northeastern coastal cities like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia; and in all the years that records have been kept, we've never hit one hundred degress in Buffalo. Not once. Lake Erie, which brings us lots of snow in early winter, also makes for really nice summers. (And our sunsets are wonderful.)

Autumn in Western New York, though, is simply spectacular. Seriously, this is the best place in the United States to pass an October, as far as I am concerned. It gets cooler, but not unbearably so; the hills turn color slower than they do in the heights of Vermont and stay stunning for a bit longer. We ease our way gently and pleasantly toward winter here.

So, we have three great seasons. Spring, though, is a climatological train wreck here. It tends to be very rainy, very gray, very cool to downright cold, and it's not at all unusual to get snow well into April. Our springs are so dank that the trees don't begin to leaf until the very end of April, and it's late May before the hills are green again. The ground goes from frozen to muddy, and it stays muddy pretty mugh right up until summer. It's like we endure two months of miserable, dreary weather -- and then all of a sudden one day it's summer, just like that. And yet, when we get two or three unseasonably warm days at the end of March, everyone suddenly starts hoping that it'll stay that way, that this will be the year that Spring in Buffalo doesn't suck. In baseball terms, we're Cubs fans when it comes to Spring.

So anyway, we had the opportunity to take a bit of a stroll the other day, as well as allowing The Daughter to try out her new scooter. She did better on it than I thought she would, since she tends to high levels of klutziness. She didn't fall a single time, although there were more than a few instances in which she got going slightly faster than she wanted to and then jumped off and lurched to something resembling a stop. Here she is, posing on the new device:

As for Little Quinn, we're looking forward to taking him out in the stroller more often. After he fell seriously behind in his growth a while back -- at one point he was over four pounds less than what he should have been at that age -- he's been putting on weight at last, and the constant parade of specialists has finally produced a couple of answers and solutions to particularly vexing problems. He's on valium now (as a muscle relaxant), which has the effect of making it easier for his physical and occupational therapists to do their work with him, which can only in turn help his development. Also, the respiratory issues he was having for a long time turn out to be something called "stridor", which also seems to have caused his problems with digestion, excessive gas, and reflux. The good news there is that we are told that the vast majority of infants with this particular problem outgrow it, and we are hopeful on that score, as already Little Quinn seems to be getting stronger and his spells of harsh breathing are becoming less frequent and less intense.

Here's how Little Quinn as he looked in my arms the other day, while The Daughter scooted about on The Scooter:

He seems to like being outside. And here's a good close-up of his face, just because I can:

Onward and upward....

GAHHH!!!

Go and bear witness to PZ Myers's taste in music, and then explain to me anew how it is that he thinks that I look like an axe-murderer. Jee-bus.

(Scary thing is, I do like three of the songs he lists therein, but only as "guilty pleasures". No, I'm not telling which three. Yes, I am highly hopeful that Dr. Myers's post is one of them "April Fools" thingies, because if it's not, well...let's just say that perhaps it's time someone removed all the cutlery from his home.)