Buffalo tastes like...chicken!

The Family and I attended the annual Taste of Buffalo food festival this afternoon. Assuming regular rates of metabolism, I forecast a return to normal hunger at around 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.

I didn't make careful note of what all we ate and where we ate it, so sorry on that score. I'd like to see some polling someday to see if the Taste actually fulfills its stated purpose -- i.e., to get people to frequent new restaurants in the area -- but that's mainly out of curiosity. The Taste is now a Buffalo institution, and it's still a blast. Some food I remember consuming:

:: Ginger and garlic chicken from May Jen. I liked this a good deal. The sauce is fairly standard for chinese chicken, but the chicken was surprisingly not battered and fried.

:: A blackened cajun burger from...someplace. This was awesome, if a trifle salty.

:: Pulled pork nachos. Some genius took normal nachos and normal melted cheese and added pulled pork to the mix. God bless that fellow.

:: Pizza from Just Pizza. I love Just Pizza. Don't eat there nearly enough. (As I've noted in the past, I love Buffalo's pizza and think that NYC-style pizza snobs need to get over it!)

:: Yeah, cinnamon almonds from the place that does cinnamon almonds. Can't get enough of these nuts. I drop something like $25 on sugared nuts every year at the Erie County Fair over two stops.

:: Crab rangoons from another Chinese joint. Very nicely done. Typical Chinese takeout joint fare, but I love that stuff.

:: Jerk chicken from the jerk chicken place. This is one of two or three items we insist on getting each year.

And yeah, we ate a lot more than that, too. Some random couple was leaving the Taste as we were entering, and handed us the rest of their tickets, about seven or eight bucks' worth, which was an unexpected gesture -- thanks a lot, random couple! Come to the BloggerCon in the Park next Saturday and I'll give you each a beer. (If you're legal. I couldn't tell.) Those extra tickets, on top of the $40.00 worth we bought ourselves, made for a day of great eating.

(By the way, people who don't take their own drinks to the Taste are crazy, especially with twelve-packs of pop being as cheap as they are nowadays -- every week, either Coke or Pepsi is running some big sale. Why spend two bucks' worth of tickets on a bottle of Coke, when you can get a twelve pack of Coke for the same price at the store, and then bring as many of 'em as you can stuff into a cooler bag to the Taste?)

(Oh, the above thing about drinks doesn't pertain to alcoholic stuff. That's a different thing. We never drink at the Taste.)

Since we didn't make the Taste last year due to traveling out west for the sister-in-law's wedding, this was the first time we've attended it in its new location, Niagara Square and up Delaware Avenue. Truth is, I can't for the life of me imagine why they held the Taste on Main Street for so long. Even though the Delaware Ave. section got really congested in spots, just like Main St. did, it was easy to spread out in Niagara Square. Main Street tended to be devoid of places to sit and enjoy one's food, but that problem didn't exist at all today. Just about everywhere we went, we could find a spot to duck out of the way and eat, and sitting in the grass and shade of Niagara Square itself was just great, especially later in the afternoon, around 3:00 or so, when the sun finally moved behind City Hall.

Plus, Delaware has more "breathing room" than Main, which meant that the guys who were on garbage patrol at the Taste didn't have to drive those carts right down the middle of the already-congested streets. And for those of you reading this who haven't had the pleasure of attending Taste of Buffalo with a baby in a stroller, let me tell you that those Metro Rail tracks in the middle of Main Street made things a real pain in the ass at times.

Niagara Square is so superior for a Festival like this that it's just obvious. Kind of like, oh, putting pulled pork in the nachos.

(I may have photos of the Taste sometime later in the week. I have to get the film developed first, although I'm going to have them all scanned onto a CD. My photo-taking will be this way for a while, since I have six rolls of film to use up. I figure I'll use those up before I send the digital off to get fixed.)

(Oh, and this was my first real opportunity to see City Hall close-up. I've driven through Niagara Square many times, but I've never been able to just stop and study the building before. Of course, it's a gorgeous structure, even with the top of it enclosed in scaffolding for repair work -- the stone carving is wonderful. But I was struck at the number of window-mounted air conditioners I saw in that building, some of them many stories up. City Hall must not have proper ductwork for A/C, I assume.)

Sunday Burst of Weirdness

Imagine having a genetic affliction that marks you in a very unique way -- a way that makes you very noticeable whenever you go out. Imagine that you have to live with this affliction every day of every year for your whole life.

One day you finally reach your breaking point, and you sue some people who are tangentially related to your affliction for a whopping sum of money. Because you can't get away from your genes, but money can help, if you can get it.

The Conflict Within the Heart of a Geek

Sir Jones the Indestructible posted his thoughts on Superman Returns, as did Jason Bannion, here, here and here. The two reviews aren't completely divergent, but they do represent fairly different takes on the movie.

And I agree with just about everything the two of them say. How about that! Isn't it wonderful, being a geek?

"Hey, Geek, how was the movie?"

"It was GREAT! Wow! It totally ROCKED! It KICKED ASS! And now, if you have a couple of hours, let me tell you what's WRONG with it!"

It's a curse, I tell you.

Ye Olde Quizmaster, part deux

Here's the other quiz I found, this time via Laura of Adventures In Juggling.

1.Have you ever been searched by the cops?

Nope.

2. Do you close your eyes on roller coasters?

I do if I'm dragged onto an indoors, "in the dark" type of coaster. I hate those.

3. When's the last time you've been sledding?

This past winter. Chestnut Ridge Park. Great place.

4. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone?

Depends on who, right?

5. Do you believe in ghosts?

No, but I wish the world had them, for some strange reason.

6. Do you consider yourself creative?

Yeah, kindasorta.

7. Do you think O.J. killed his wife?

Keeping in mind that I spent very little time following the case, yes, I do.

8. Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie?

Sela Ward.

9. Do you stay friends with your exes?

Well, no, but not because I hate them or anything. I've just lost track of them completely. (Well, OK, there was one that I wasn't too fond of afterwards, but that's water long past under my bridge.)

10. Do you know how to play poker?

No. (I'm a shitty card player, really.)

11. Have you ever been awake for 48 hours straight?

Heavens, no!

12. What's your favorite commercial?

Geez, I don't know. I can't even think of any commercials right now.

13. What are you allergic to?

Libertarians! [rimshot] Seriously, though, I have a feeling I'm developing hay fever as I get older, but other than that, nothing.

14. If you're driving in the middle of the night, and no one is around do you run red lights?

I have, but rarely. One time I did it inadvertently, and a cop pulled me over. Luckily, he let me go without a ticket. (It was my first night closing Pizza Hut on a weekend in the old town, and when I pulled out of our lot, every light up the street was blinking yellow since it was after 2:00 a.m. Every light except one, which I didn't realize had gone red. Oops. I explained this to the cop, who then expressed his hope that I wasn't a delivery driver. Funny guy.)

15. Do you have a secret that no one knows but you?

Yes. I'm secretly in love with...hey! Stop that!

16. Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees?

Pittsburgh Pirates, who, as of this writing, are the worst team in baseball, even worse than the Royals. A year or so ago I read in an article somewhere that mega-rich Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban would love to buy the Pirates; after watching years of crappy baseball courtesy of current Pirates owner Kevin McClatchy's refusal to spend money on anything other than guys like Derek Bell, I say, "Bring on Mark Cuban!"

17. Have you ever been Ice Skating?

Yes. I wasn't particularly good at it. Turns out it isn't as much like rollerblading as I thought it would be.

18. How often do you remember your dreams?

You mean, this isn't one right now? Ye Gods!

19. When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried?

Don't remember, but it's not a totally unheard of thing for me to do.

20. Can you name 5 songs by The Beatles?

"Hey Jude" (God, I hate that song), "Yesterday", "Michelle", "In My Life" (my favorite Beatles song, although like every other Beatles song, I like it better when someone other than the Beatles does it), "Yellow Submarine".

21. What's the one thing on your mind now?

Why the Democrats are such a bunch of weenies.

22. Do you know who Ghetto-ass Barbie is?

Huh?

23. Do you always wear your seat belt?

Yes. I feel naked without it.

24. What cell service do you use?

I don't currently own a cell phone, although I wouldn't mind getting one someday. I don't like how cell phones have come to rule the world, though, and I hate watching young people wander around in that bubble-world they enter when they're texting each other like drones. When did we decide as a society that we have to be able to contact, and be contacted by, everybody else at any moment in the day?

25. Do you like Sushi?

Yes! And it's been too long since I've had it.

26. Have you ever narrowly avoided a fatal accident?

Not that I know of.

27. What do you wear to bed?

I think it best, for the health of my readership, that I not answer this. (Except to say that I don't sleep in overalls.)

28. Been caught stealing?

No. Bwaaaa-haaa-hahahahaha! (Seriously, I don't steal.)

29. What shoe size do you have?

Depends on the shoe manufacturer -- I have shoes ranging from 10.5 to 12 that I wear often. So, take the mean at 11.25, I suppose.

30. Do you truly hate anyone?

It's an ugly thing, I admit, but yes. Longtime readers will be able to cite a few.

31. Classic Rock or Rap?

Between the two, classic rock. But for my normal listening: classical, Celtic, and film music.

32. If you could sleep with one famous person, who would it be?

Didn't I answer this in question eight?

33. Favorite Song?

I'll answer this one differently every time, so right now I'll say "On the Street Where You Live", by Lerner and Loewe, from "My Fair Lady".

34. Have you ever sang in front of the mirror?

Yeah, although I don't do anything goofy like pretend my shaver is a microphone or anything.

35. What food do you find disgusting?

Broccoli. I will forever fail to understand what makes otherwise reasonable people put that nauseating weed into their mouths.

36. Do you sing in the shower?

Actually, no.

37. Did you ever play, "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours?"

Yeah. His Han Solo action figure was a lot cooler than mine, I'm sad to say.

[blinks]

What are you talking about? What?! Eeewwwwwwww!

38. Have you ever made fun of your friends behind their back?

Yeah, but later on I tend to tell them what I said, and then they tell me what they said about me, and so on. That's the kind of people I hang out with.

39. Have you ever stood up for someone you hardly knew?

Absolutely, and someday, George Lucas will thank me!

40. Have you ever been punched in the face?

Literally? Not that I recall. Figuratively? All the f***ing time.

OK, that's all for now.

Ye Olde Quizmaster

Time was when I'd answer just about any quiz that came along, but I suddenly stopped seeing them as frequently as I had in the past. I found two recently that looked fun, so here's the first, via Paul.

1-What do you want people to say about you when you die?

Long live the Emperor!

2-How long does it take you to get ready to go out?

Kind of depends on where we're going and how enthusiastic I am about going there.

3-If you were an animal what would you be?

A cat.

4-What's your biggest fear?

Well, clowns freak me out a bit.

5-What’s your most prized possesion?

My 60th anniversary edition of The Lord of the Rings, I guess.

6-What’s the funniest word you can think of?

Hmmmm. Gary Larson once wrote that he found the very word "cow" inherently funny, and yeah, it is -- but I like "heebie-jeebies".

7-Do you get along with your parents? Yes.

8-What do you look for in the opposite sex? Eyes, hips, hair, and, well, let's just say "pleasing topography".

9-What was the most difficult thing you had to do? Tell The Daughter that her brother had died. Of all my memories of the whole week Little Quinn passed away, that moment is the one memory that is guaranteed to make me cry.

10-If you were given one day to live what would you do? Er -- I'm not going to answer that one honestly in this space. I'll just go with "leave a bag of burning dog poop on the White House doorstep".

11-If you could relive any day of your life either for good or to change it what would it be? I'd take the interview with The Store when they called way back in 2001. I'd already accepted a job that I'd turn out to both hate and suck at with another company.

12-What's the worst feeling in the world? What do you think?

The best? Being in someone's arms.

13-If you could meet anyone who ever existed who would it be? Carl Sagan.

14-What was the meanest thing you ever did as a little kid? Yeah, I'm not answering this, either.

15-What have you learned about love? Well, it hurts, scars, wounds and mars. As a thing in itself, it has a tendency to be many-splendored. You should set stuff free if you love it. If you love someone, you never have to apologize to them.

16-How have you changed in the past year? The hair's longer and grayer, the heart's lonelier, the brain's finding new stuff to think about. That's kind of how everybody changes, isn't it?

Wow! That is one PRODUCTIVE President!

George W. Bush talking in People about global warming:

I think there is a debate about whether it's caused by mankind or whether it's caused naturally, but it's a worthy debate. It's a debate, actually, that I'm in the process of solving by advancing new technologies, burning coal cleanly in electric plants, or promoting hydrogen-powered automobiles, or advancing ethanol as an alternative to gasoline.

Goodness! First we're told there's a debate (even though all but the most deluded of us are aware that there isn't); then the Prez tells us that he's solving the debate (as though a debate is a puzzle or something); then he tells us that he's solving the debate in ways that make clear that the side of the non-existent "debate" that he can never ever ever admit is right actually is right (otherwise, why do any of that stuff?).

And then there's the wording: apparently Bush is personally advancing new technologies, he's personally burning coal cleanly, he's personally promoting hydrogen-powered vehicles, and he's personally advancing ethanol. He's doing all that stuff personally, in the same way that Al Gore personally created the Internet. What do you want to bet that Bush's statement will be read the same way Gore's was? Nothing? Yeah, that's the smart bet.

After more than five years of the "Uniter and Decider", I for one still miss the "Joker, Smoker, and Midnight Toker".

(via)

Pens

Seeing a post over at Simon's blog titled "A Fetish of Sorts", I got slightly intrigued -- what possible fetishes could that mild-mannered Canadian have? It turns out that he's not talking about anything so bizarre as, say, certain forms of workwear. He really likes pens!

Well, I like pens myself. In fact, I've just this week returned to writing longhand, having started a new short story using one of my Levenger fountain pens. (The "Gotham" model, which I adore.) I love my fountain pens, and I own nearly twenty of them, by manufacturers such as Levenger, Parker, Waterman, Sheaffer, and Pelikan. The tactile sensation of writing with a fountain pen is just wonderful -- it's this combination of a pleasant scratching and gliding of the tip of the nib that's really beguiling. Plus, there's the wonderful elegance of the device, the way the two tines of the nib spread apart just enough to leave a line of wet ink behind.

And really, fountain pens are so much better looking than "normal" pens. Even the cheapest regular fountain pens look nifty, and of course, the higher-end ones that can run for hundreds of dollars leave the realm of "writing instruments" and enter the realm of "jewelry". (Check out the offerings at Omas, for example. Look at some of their limited edition pens.)

The best metaphor I've heard for a fountain pen is that it's basically a brush, consisting of just two bristles (possibly three, if you're using a music nib) that are made of metal. Once you get that image, writing with a fountain pen just falls into place: you're not pushing the pen across the page, but rather you're using a brush to paint the words onto the page. I wish I could remember where I read that.

Fountain pens aren't exactly cheap, of course, and even the cheapest ones that are worth buying will be around thirty bucks or so. But I have fountain pens that I bought eight years ago for such amounts, and not only do they still work, but they are likely to continue working for decades more. It turns out that pens are like hand tools (a more recent obsession of mine): yes, you can buy cheap adjustable pliers for seven or eight bucks, and then replace them in a few years when they break, or you can buy a good pair for twenty-five bucks and never replace them. The hand-tool metaphor also offers a solution to people who worry about other folks "borrowing" their fountain pens and never returning them: simply don't lend them out. If you've ever seen the expression of utter disdain in the eye of a mechanic when you've asked him if you can borrow one of his Mac tools for a bit, you get the drift. Just being on the receiving end of that look is usually enough to have a person retreating and muttering, "Uhh...never mind...I'll just go to Target and buy a Stanley wrench or something...we need some more bed sheets anyway...sorry to bother you...."

(For those who still worry about such things, some solutions: first, keep a crappy pen in your pocket that you don't particularly mind not having returned; or, if someone asks to use your pen, give them the pen but not the cap. This little trick usually works wonders. Plus, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, if you actually hand someone your fountain pen, they'll take one look at the nib and stammer about how they don't know how to write with one of these.)

Simon does have the difficulty of being left-handed, which raises certain questions of grip. A wet line of ink is OK for righties, since the wrist precedes the line, but for lefties, it can be a problem. This is why lots of left-handed people tend to write with their wrists noticeably more elevated than righties: they don't want to drag their wrists across what they've just written, causing smudges.

He also points out that the ink from the disposable fountain pen he tried bled and feathered through the page. That, also, is a problem for fountain pens of all stripes: because they use real liquid ink, as opposed to the gel inks or other varieties of thick, pressurized inks found in ballpoints, and because they tend to dispense more ink than roller balls which also deal with real liquid ink, fountain pens can't really be used on lesser grades of paper without these things happening. The problem isn't so much the ink in such cases as the paper. Fountain pens should really be used on finer paper than one will typically find in, say, school notebooks and the like. You need thicker, heavier paper for good fountain pen use. I tend to not buy any paper less than 22-pound.

The "thicker paper for fountain pens" rule isn't totally binding, I should note. I have a blank-book type of journal that has very thick pages, and still the ink from my fountain pens tends to spread a bit when I write in it. This is because the paper is noticeably more porous when examined with a magnifying glass. The same applies to certain kinds of card stock: my fountain pens write wonderfully on most index cards, but on other kinds of cards, again, the ink spreads. The culprit here seems to be the degree to which the fibrous content of the card stock is visible. For fountain pen usage, the smoother the paper the better the ink will hold its line and not spread.

Oh, and there's one area of modern pen usage where fountain pens are nearly useless: filling out duplicate or triplicate forms. Fountain pens are not intended for being pressed into the page, which is necessary for such forms. Don't even attempt it, folks. Pressing down on the nib of a fountain pen is never a good idea. This is a good reason to keep store-bought rollerballs or gel-ink pens around. (I like Uniballs and Parker Jotters, for these purposes.)

And for God's sake, if you're using ink cartridges to fill your fountain pens, do not try to start the flow of ink to the nib by tapping the point on the paper! Please oh please! Hold the pen in your hand in the writing position, and then strike your pen-hand wrist against your other wrist, while striking the pen itself against nothing at all. The sudden jolts will help in getting the ink to flow from the cartridges. And better yet, to avoid this problem entirely, don't use cartridges at all. Get a piston-fill converter (in fact, most fountain pens should come with these already) and fill your fountain pens from good old bottled ink. Generally you won't be able to find bottled ink at big office superstores like Staples, but good art supply stores will have the stuff available, because calligraphers use it.

But you know what the coolest thing about a fountain pen is? If you get a good one and use it for years, over time the point will slightly wear down in a way that is unique to your grip on the pen. The pen will get to know you, so much so that after a long enough time, someone else attempting to use your pen will find that it just might skip or leave a poor line, when you've never once had a problem with it. That's something that will never happen with a Uniball or a Parker Jotter or, should you be unfortunate enough to have to use them, a Papermate or a Bic!

Do they serve it with a side of Tenille's Potatoes?

Kevin Drum has a pretty odd item from the other day: it seems that in the armed forces, a particular MRE (Meal Ready-to-Eat) has plunged in popularity because, well, it apparently "make you gay".

Uh...OK then. I found a recipe for the dish the MRE is supposed to emulate here; it's called "Country Captain Chicken". Perusing the recipe, I can't really see anything in there that'll give a person a case of "teh gay", so I'm at a loss here.

Maybe it's just too "gourmet-sounding" for the military guys? Having never served in the military at all, I'm pretty much talking out of my ass here, but "Country Captain Chicken" just sounds kind of non-John Wayneish, if you take my meaning. So maybe it's not the dish that's the problem, but rather the name of the dish. I don't know about you, but I want the guys protecting my freedom to be subsisting on stuff called things like "Pig Slop" and "Shit on a Shingle".

Joking aside, I found this article on MREs pretty interesting. It includes a list of the MREs that are currently offered, and it's worth nothing that the Country Captain Chicken is the only one that has a name like that: everything else is simply descriptive, like "Chicken with Salsa and Mexican Rice" or "Turkey Breast with Gravy and Potatoes" or "Roast Beef". I'll bet if they just called it "Curried Chicken with Tomato-Currant Sauce", the stuff wouldn't have its apparent reputation.

Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning

In recent months, a certain feeling of ennui has crept into my brain, and it's set up camp on the blog. It's hard not to notice it: my posting has been more infrequent, my commentary less interesting, and my traffic has accordingly been, well, just less. I'm finding myself with fewer and fewer things to say.

Some might say that this is inevitable after more than four years of blogging, and maybe it is. This is probably the reason so many bloggers eventually end up leaving Blogistan entirely -- but I don't know. I've seen lots of bloggers quit blogging, but I've also seen plenty who closed one blog and then returned some time later with a different one. So what happened?

The problem for me, I've realized, is that I'm doing too much sitting at the computer and robotically clicking links, and too little actual engaging with, you know, the stuff that used to fuel my work here. Not enough reading books, not enough listening to music, not enough walking in the park, not enough writing.

So what does this mean for Byzantium's Shores? Well, being perfectly honest, I have considered closing the blog down. I wouldn't do a "Thanks folks, but that's it and I'm done" post, but I'd have announced a date for closure -- a timetable for pulling my troops out of Blogistan, you might say -- and tried to end up with a group of posts summing things up and closing it out. I even picked out a poem that would have served as my final post. (For a lark, ten points to the reader who correctly guesses which poem I was going to use.)

But the problem there is that I know myself, and I know that I can't shut up. And I love having this outlet for things to say; it's why I launched the blog in the first place. So if I'm not closing the blog, what am I doing?

I'm going to listen to more music. I'm going to read more books. I'm going to go for walks. I'm going to write more. Not here, necessarily -- I'm going to write at my other desk, the actual writing desk, on paper, using my fountain pens. I'm going to start reading blogs through my long-underused BlogLines account, and I'm going to start using a timer to limit the amount of time I spend sitting in front of the machine and clicking my way around the Interweb.

So yeah, I'll be posting less frequently in the future. New material might appear here only two or three times a week, as opposed to four or five. But hopefully that material will be better. It won't be "all long essays, all the time"; I'm sure that I'll still get in the playful mood to just link stuff with short comment every so often. The regular features here, Sentential Links and the Sunday Burst of Weirdness, will stick around. (Yeah, the Image of the Week is pretty much dead, mainly because I just kept forgetting to do it.) I will still designate certain beautiful women for ROWR! status once or twice a month; I will still occasionally wax poetic about Star Wars and cyber-stalk George Lucas; come fall I will still take time every Monday to vent my frustrations about the Bills' offensive line and lambaste the Stupid Patriots; I'll still trawl YouTube for funky videos and make vague references to questionable non-desert uses for whipped cream. In short, I'll still be offering the occasional meditations that one would expect from an overgrown hippie who is just discovering the joys of hand tools and who thinks life would be perfect if he could wear overalls all the time.

So anyway, that's the plan.

I am a Patriot.

I used to have difficulty with the concept of patriotism.

It always seemed to me to boil down to unquestioning devotion to one's country -- but in a strange way. It wasn't even so much unquestioning devotion to the country itself, but rather to a certain set of political beliefs. In my high school and college years, those wonderful years in which every question is a mere formulation of a binary state, it always seemed to me as if a person's "patriotism" was measured by the political equivalent of one of those magazine questionaires:

Do you think children should be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance? Yes or No.

Do you think that the presence of openly gay individuals in our armed services would be inappropriate? Yes or No.

Do you think that Oliver North should be pardoned for his crimes, seeing as how he was fighting the Communists? Yes or No.

[forty-seven questions later]

If you answered "Yes" forty-five or more times, you are True-Blue American Patriot. If you answered "Yes" between thirty-five and forty-four times, you're on the right track but America isn't quite ready to trust you yet. If you answered "Yes" between twenty and thirty-four times, we're OK with you working and paying taxes but we'd just as soon you didn't show up at the polls on the first Tuesday in November. And if you answered "Yes" nineteen times or fewer, please report to your local Constable for assignment to a Re-education Camp.

Yes, that's a bit extreme. But that's how it seemed to me, and even now, I don't think that the Right in this country has been at odds to suggest otherwise. It's pretty inherent in their rhetoric. Disagreement with us equals disagreement with America. Voicing disagreement in the vicinity of the President is limited to "Free Speech Zones" which are located well away from anywhere the President's feet will tread; voicing disagreement in the presence of the President is almost entirely unheard of. The President is continually referred to as "our" or "your" or "my" Commander in Chief, even though that title only pertains to his role with the armed forces, and not the country as a whole. (He is not my "Commander in Chief"; he is my President.) If a newspaper prints information that the President and his advisors don't want printed, then that newspaper is committing treason.

You don't love America, we are told. You are objectively pro-terrorist. You are aiding al-Qaeda. You are giving comfort to the Enemy.

You are NOT a Patriot.

Well, I am a Patriot. And I will have words with anyone who says otherwise.

Patriotism is not unquestioning love of one's country, nor is it adherence to a given set of dogmas laid forth by the extreme commentators on one side of our political spectrum. Patriotism is true love of one's country. I am a Patriot because I love America.

But how can this be? How can I claim to love America when I am so deeply disappointed with many of the things America has done in recent years? How can love and disappointment be applied at the same time? How can I honestly say that I am disappointed in America of late, and still claim to be a Patriot?

Because love does not rule out disappointment. In fact, it's exactly the opposite: love enables disappointment. I could not claim to love America if I were not disappointed in her as of late.

People we love disappoint us all the time. Our children bring home report cards that indicate a sudden lack of effort, or they lie to get out of the house so they can hang out with the friends we wish they didn't have. Our closest friends fail to call when we need them to the most, or to follow through on promises they've made. Our parents disappoint us. Our brothers and sisters disappoint us.

And yet we go on loving them, despite the disappointments, because we are connected with them and because they make us proud as well.

When we say "America", we often mean different things. "America" is a country, easily found on the globe, whose capital is Washington, DC. Her people are Americans, and since a country is nothing more than a collection of people who are identified as such, it follows that no country can possibly be infallible. People are imperfect. We make mistakes. We screw things up. And since countries are driven by the actions imperfect people, no country can be perfect. Countries make mistakes. Countries screw things up.

But there's another sense of "America", in that America is a notion, an ideal. Here is how Aaron Sorkin described it in an episode of The West Wing:

This country is an idea, and one that’s lit the world for two centuries and treason against that idea is not just a crime against the living! This ground holds the graves of people who died for it, who gave what Lincoln called the last full measure of devotion. Of fidelity.

It seems to me that political differences spring from differing notions of what the "ideal" of America really is. For me, it is freedom of a people; it is self-determination with the knowledge that government should always be accountable to us.

The most common thread I hear in the sermons at church every week is that we humans are constantly failing to live up to the ideals God and Christ have set for us. Whether one is Christian or not, it's still easy to see what this means: the message is that God and Christ love us despite our failure to live up to their ideals. The same can be applied to the idea of Patriotism. When I say that I am disappointed in America, what I am really saying is that the actions of the nation of America has failed to live up to the ideal of America.

I am disappointed that America has committed an invasion of another country on less than honest pretenses. I am disappointed that America has waged a war of such ineptitude that less and less good can honestly be seen to eventually come of it. I am disappointed that the word "Christian" in this country has come to refer in our national discourse to a small subset of extremely rigid thinkers. I am disappointed that science is embraced in some circumstances, but wilfully ignored in others.

But I'm also proud that an American president said "You know, we should go to the Moon" -- and less than nine years later, there we were. I'm proud that America took elements of aboriginal African music from its forced African immigrants and developed it into jazz, and I'm proud that this jazz fused with classical music. I'm proud that the American military chose to invest in these gigantic, ungainly machines called "computers" back in the 40s, and I'm proud that a few decades later the American defense establishment worked on getting computers in distant places to talk to one another, laying the basic groundwork for our current Internet. I'm proud that a former Vice President, defeated for the one office higher than that, went on to advocate strongly for a crucial environmental issue, and I'm frankly proud that an American changed my life when he took me to a galaxy far, far away.

That's why the notion that liberals do not truly love America is so absurd. If liberals were indifferent to America, we could hardly be disappointed in her.

I couldn't be proud of America if I didn't already love America, and I couldn't be disappointed in America if I didn't already love America. That's what it all means, in the end. And if your idea of what it is to love America rules out the very possibility of being disappointed in her, then I have to question which of us truly loves America.

Making the Right sound Right!

I forgot that I meant to start doing this as a semi-regular feature: taking a far-Right blog entry, or excerpt thereof, and using Babelfish to make it sound either more or less crazy, depending on the hilarious results. Here's a bit from one of my favorite lunatics, Adam Yoshida.

Here's a bit from this post of his:

So, this is the situation with regard to the prisoners in Guantanamo:

1) They can’t be put on trial because, in most cases, they probably haven’t committed any crimes under American law and, in any case, it’s doubtful if the evidence collected would stand up to American criminal procedures (to begin with, I doubt if the Special Forces bothered to Mirandaize most of them).
2) They can’t be tried by Military Commission because the Supreme Court says they can’t.
3) They can’t be let go because, in most cases, they’d simply return to terrorism.

So, what is to be done with them? The answer is simple and elegant: kill them. Kill all of them.

Let's take that from English to French and then back again, shall we?

Thus, it is the situation with regard to the prisoners with Guantanamo:

1) they cannot be put on the test because, in the majority of the cases, they probably did not commit any crime under the terms of the American law and, in any event, it is doubtful if the obviousness gathered would be held until the American criminal procedures (to start with, I doubt if the worried special forces with Mirandaize more they).
2) they cannot be tested by Military Commission because the supreme court indicates that they cannot.
3) they cannot be left go because, in the majority of the cases, they would return simply to terrorism.

Thus, that must be made with them? The answer is simple and elegant: kill them. Kill all.

You know what? I like the translation better. It has this brutish quality that suits the Neanderthalic, "Ugh! Me Westerner, you not! Kill! Ugh!" logic behind all of Yoshida's thinking. Maybe Adam should use Babelfish thusly to prepare all of his posts before he publishes them!

(Thanks, of sorts, to Robert Tilendis for reminding me about good old Adam.)

Sentential Links #55

Heading into the holiday:

:: Whod’a thunk I would be so in love with a movie about a KILLER SHARK! (How do you get to live in America to the year 2006 without seeing the movie in question? Oh the Humanity!)

:: I am thinking about getting a tattoo or several to remind me about gratitude. I seem to forget about this way too much. It is the best gift we can give one another.

:: If you don't buy this novel, I'll kill myself. I mean it. I have Tylenol and wine, and I'm not afraid to mix them.

:: POW! Office Morale Booster!

:: People talking on cell phones can be annoying but sometimes I get the feeling that some people just want to ban cell phones in enough places so that they never have to see anyone talking on a cell phone. (It's not the cell phone that bugs me, it's the implied behavior by incessant users of them that the cell phone is more important than the people who are around them. With very few exceptions -- and business-related "emergencies" do not qualify, unless they involve buildings on fire -- I don't believe there are conversations that are so important that they must be indulged wherever one is, simply because the existence of the cell phone makes it possible.)

:: Alfalfa has the property of promoting growth and well-being in some creatures while disagreeing with others. No one knows why. Cows love it. (Alfalfa sprouts! I love those on a sandwich, and I haven't had them in, oh, forever or so. Now I gotta get some. It'll be a nice change from my much-loved romaine and red-leaf lettuces.)

:: What possible defense is there for this behavior, and what rational person would consider Malkin, Hinderaker, Horowitz, Red State -- all of them -- even the slightest bit credible in the future?

:: John Hinderaker has responded to my post on how Hinderaker claimed that ticket sales for Al Gore's movie had gone down when they'd actually gone up. (And surprise of surprises, it turns out that Hinderaker is an idiot. Imagine my shock.)

:: John Hinderaker sure could use a history lesson. (Wow. If being full of crap was a hockey game, Hinderaker would have the hat trick.)

:: Lady Liberty, Goddess of America: long may you lift your lamp against the darkness.

:: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

:: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

:: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

:: James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams: We've long resisted asking you for guidance. Perhaps we have feared in doing so we might acknowledge that our individuality which we so, so revere is not entirely our own. Perhaps we've feared an appeal to you might be taken for weakness. But, we've come to understand, finally, that this is not so. We understand now, we've been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding that who we are is who we were.

We desperately need your strength and wisdom to triumph over our fears, our prejudices, our-selves. Give us the courage to do what is right. And if it means civil war, then let it come. And when it does, may it be, finally, the last battle of the American Revolution.

:: Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

:: We cannot improve on the system of government handed down to us by the founders of the Republic. There is no way to improve upon that. But what we can do is to find new ways to implement that system and realize our destiny.

:: So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.

:: With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Happy Birthday, America. Better days you've seen, but better days you will see again.

An advance apology to my readers

I offer the most heartfelt apology for any mental damage that may result from watching the YouTube videos linked below.

Aaron found (via his sister) David Hasselhoff singing "Hooked On A Feeling", which might be the worst thing I've ever seen.

It might be...if not for something that scarred me for life in March of 1989.

The Academy Awards. Snow White. Rob Lowe. Quiver, mere mortals.

(And heck, I might as well link this bit of oddity, just because I don't understand the promotion here. I'm not sure how pie throwing pertains to high speed internet service, but I can be pretty dense sometimes.)

Sunday Burst of Weirdness

This isn't really weirdness in the classic sense, but a mildly interesting bit of comic book history, at least for me. I just bought a copy of The Comic Book Encyclopedia, and in thumbing through it, I read the entry about the Silver Surfer, which in turn reminded me of the character Galactus, which in turn reminded me of a story that Marvel serialized in EPIC Magazine called "The Last Galactus Story". But EPIC was discontinued before "The Last Galactus Story" actually ended, and the thing sat in limbo for years. So I did a search on it, having not thought about "The Last Galactus Story" in years, and found the answer here, in which the story's writer and artist, John Byrne, describes how it was to end. More interestingly, Byrne goes on to describe why he's left every comics series he's ever departed. It's interesting to learn that he departed Alpha Flight because he basically thought that Alpha Flight was a bad idea.

I was never the biggest fan of John Byrne's work; his landscapes were impressive, but every character he drew seemed to have a big lantern jaw. Got distracting after a while.

No, no real point here. Moving along....

Brokeback Krypton

Steven Den Beste looks at the box office take for Superman Returns (post dated 7-1-06; scroll down to find it), and uses the numbers as a lesson that he wishes Hollywood would learn: stop making these gigantic "blockbusters". Fair enough; nobody would argue dispute the notion that Hollywood blockbuster movies cost way too much to make. But I was struck by this statement of Steven's:

I have nothing against the Superman franchise as such. I'm not uptight about "the American way" being abandoned. I don't really care that they've decided to make it "relevant" by giving Lois Lane an illegitimate son and hinting that Superman might be gay. I don't care about any of that.

I'm not sure that Lois's kid is an attempt to make the movie "relevant", so much as an indicator of -- well, I don't think it's really an indicator of anything at all. It's just there, really: Lois is now a single mom. If this indicates anything, it's that single moms are a pretty routine thing in society today. The film doesn't really dwell on this, except of course for the matter of the kid's parentage, but that's a different kettle of fish.

But if any of my readers has seen the movie, can you tell me where it's hinted that Superman might be gay? I didn't see this in the movie at all. Not once. The guy's completely in love with Lois, isn't he? Did I read something wrong? I can't fathom where this is coming from.

(On a somewhat tangential note, this morning's addition to Roger Ebert's ongoing series on The Great Movies is a silent epic made in 1914 called Cabiria. Here's a key portion of Ebert's article:

The sets for Griffith's "Intolerance" possibly grew so large after he saw "Cabiria," and DeMille was also fond of enormous sets. When a modern film like "Troy" creates a vast Greek city out of digital information, we aren't fooled. We may be impressed by the visual effect, but we aren't impressed by the achievement. Watching these silent films, we feel a kind of awe, because we see that the sets are really there, and really that size.

The same reality is true of some of the stunts in "Cabiria." There is a scene where a city's walls are besieged by warriors on ladders, and others in a wicker basket are raised high up at the end of a crane. The city defenders push the ladders off the walls, and use lances to overturn the basket. Yes, there are probably piles of straw down below to cushion the warriors as they land, but look how far they fall while they are still onscreen. The risks they are taking are chilling.

This is one thing about the Lord of the Rings films that I find so satisfying: pretty much alone of all the Big Digital Epics of late, those films look the most real to me. This has nothing much to do with SDB's post, but there it is.)

(Welcome to all of SDB's readers, and thanks to the one who pointed out a gramatical error of mine. The first graf has been edited for clarity.)

Transitions

New stuff about Blogistan:

:: Aaron posted stuff. His next scheduled postings should appear in late September, so get your tickets now!

:: Newly-minted blogger Shawn Kardell's a guy I went to college with. He was just another face in the Arts Center Student Lounge until one day he spontaneously recited a bit of obscure Star Wars dialogue, which I finished, to his astonishment. (Stormtrooper: "Hey, have you seen that new BT-16?" Other stormtrooper: "Yeah, one of the other guys was telling me about that. He said it's quite a thing to see.") He was also a collector of Zippo lighters at the time; don't know if he still is, but it further impressed him when I informed him that my hometown at the time was about thirty minutes away from the Zippo factory in Bradford, PA.

:: Former blogger Jason Streed of Waterloo, IA is back blogging again. He's a very erudite individual, but he didn't seem terribly enamored of blogging when he was maintaining Finches Wings, his old blog which he eventually deleted. Well, then he turned up on MySpace, decided he thinks MySpace stinks as a blogging environment (as do I -- why that site is so popular is beyond me), and has now moved to WordPress. Got all that? Anyway, he can now be found at High Weir. Not much there yet, but I look forward to reading his explorations of all things literary. This guy's a reader to a degree that makes me feel like Homer Simpson, reading the label on the back of the bag of honey-roasted peanuts.

:: The Bedenkoization of the Buffalo Prefecture of Blogistan continues, with the birth of Mia, Alan's newest addition. I've known that Alan and his wife were expecting for a long time, now -- he told me of her pregancy when I met him in person at Little Quinn's wake -- and when Alan noted a few weeks ago that he might not be able to make BloggerCon Episode IV: Bloggers in the Park, I immediately thought, "Hmmmm...wonder why that could be...."

Personally, I expect Mia's first words to be "Buffalo, bitches!"

Time to delve deeply into the mysteries of humanity -- oooh, a butterfly!

I've been gathering a number of titles for my space opera reading project, although the project itself is on slight hold because I have a backlog of review books awaiting my attention. It's a lot of fun buying cheap paperback SF novels on eBay, I must admit -- I tend to simply look for cover art that screams out, "Space Opera here". We're talking guys with swords posing in front of soaring space ships and the like.

But then, I hop over to MeFi this morning and find a compelling reading list of books pertaining to another long-simmering fascination of mine, the sea. So now I've just got to start reading through this list, too. I've got two down, out of 101: The Odyssey and Under the Black Flag (a wonderful history of pirates that examines both piratical myth and reality).

Too much reading! And here I am, typing away into Blogger....

(By the way, space opera reading suggestions are still welcome. Feel free to e-mail or leave comments. The original comments thread for the old post is gone, since it was hosted on my old system, but I did make note of all the books that were suggested therein. I'd be particularly interested in space opera comics or manga.

And if anyone wants to make reading suggestions of books involving the sea, well, feel free to do that as well!)

A query....

If our enemy, The Terrorists (TM), are so inept that they can't get hold of readily-available public information until the New York Times prints it for them in black-and-white, then why haven't we beaten them yet?

Conversely, how is it that to those wonderful commentarians on the Right such as Michelle Malkin, the Powerline boys, and the laddies over at RedState, printing stuff that anyone can find out just by doing a little research in the New York Times constitutes treason punishable by death by that paper and its publishers, reporters, photographers, and possibly the guy who changes the lightbulbs in the newsroom? I'm particularly concerned about that last one, you know. It's a bit of solidarity I feel for guys who change lightbulbs for a living.

And these are the folks who get to decide which of us on the Left are "unhinged". Well, if Michelle Malkin can be taken as an illustrative example for being hinged, I will happily remain unhinged. Because, you know, "hinged" looks an awful lot to me like "batshit crazy".

For Jor-el so loved the world that he gave....

So I saw Superman Returns last night.

I thought it was a terrific entertainment, a wonderful time, and I loved it. Seriously: this movie felt like a warm, fuzzy blanket for the eight-year-old geek who lives inside me. But wow, it could have been utterly great. In the film's zeal to recreate the magic of the 1978 Richard Donner film, it missed a number of opportunities. But it was so damned cheerful in missing those opportunities that most of me is saying, "Meh, who cares? They can do all that next time."

(Spoilers follow, by the way. I make no effort to pussyfoot around stuff, so if you're trying to preserve a "virgin" Superman experience, don't read this post.)

OK. Spoiler time, in "grab-bag" bullet-point style:

:: This is twice in a week that I've seen a movie that took its sweet time telling its story. (Cars was the first. I'll post about that one in a day or two.) And you know what? I found it really refreshing. Superman Returns involved me in its world, pulled me in, and held me there for a while. So many times I get the feeling that movies want to shake me up a bit and then toss me out into the street, like a really fun roller coaster for which you wait ninety minutes in line for a ride that lasts two minutes.

I'm probably the ideal person for whom this movie was made: for me, the 1978 Superman film sets the icon of Superman in stone. That's how I view the character, it's how I envision Krypton and Smallville and Lex Luthor and all the rest of it. This movie goes to occasionally astonishing lengths to recapture that "world", instead of just coming up with a totally new retelling of the Superman story. I liked that, a lot. In terms of influence on my love of the fantastic, Superman: The Movie is very close to Star Wars with me, so much so that I'm more interested in that movie than the character of Superman in general. When DC Comics relaunched the character in the late 80s with John Byrne's Man of Steel series, my basic reaction was, "Well, OK" -- even though it postulated a Clark Kent who'd actually been allowed to play high school football.

So if you can take or leave Superman: The Movie, you may not get what Superman Returns is attempting.

:: Brandon Routh was perfectly fine as Superman. I would have liked to have seen less of "Clark Kent, bumbling buttoned-down nerd", though.

:: Lex Luthor's plot makes absolutely no sense, of course. But I liked that he's still obsessed with real estate. (In the 1978 film, did he really think that if he'd succeeded in knocking California into the Pacific, the US Government wouldn't have seized all that land he'd just bought under eminent domain? That's the kind of stuff you're not supposed to think about in a Superman movie.)

:: In the Batman movies, it's always blatantly clear that Gotham doesn't exist anywhere. It's a totally fanciful creation. (I haven't seen Batman Begins in its entirety, so I can't vouch for Gotham in that film.) But Metropolis is different, isn't it? In the first four Superman films, Metropolis is clearly New York City. Superman and Lois Lane fly over the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty; there are aerial shots of Manhattan; one sequence takes place in Grand Central Station; and so on.

But in Superman Returns, the "Metropolis as NYC" angle is no longer there. It took me a while to realize it, but that isn't Manhattan in this movie. In fact, it isn't any city. It's a pure digital creation, and it looks totally real, for the most part.

I wonder if director Bryan Singer made it this way in order to visually deflect the inevitable question of whether 9-11 happened while Superman was away.

:: The Kid didn't bother me. He did pretty well, actually, and I am supremely grateful that the script didn't give the kid a "Wesley saves the Enterprise" moment, except for the single moment when he kills a baddie with a piano. Still, I hope that The Kid isn't a centerpiece for the plots of future Superman movies.

The way Superman echoes to his son the last things that Jor-El said to him, as a baby on Krypton before being launched into space, was a wonderful moment.

:: Still on the Kid: the manner in which he ends up captive along with Lois Lane may well rank among the top five stupidest things I've ever seen a movie character do. Jee-bus, Lois, get a friggin' clue.

:: Loose threads department: so, did Superman push the Growing Hunk o' Kryptonite into the sun, or is that thing now in the Solar System too? Is it still growing? Will its orbit bring it periodically close enough to Earth to disrupt Superman's powers? Will that thing be a plot point in future movies?

:: Frank Langella was terrific. And he also appears to have really long fingers. (The things you notice!)

:: When Superman first arrives on the scene again, after the plane rescue, he stands there and basks in the glory. Heavens, he seems to enjoy it. What happened to the "Don't thank me, we're all part of the same team!" guy? And what was up with the scene in which he's pretty much of a Super Stalker, spying on Lois's family? The subtext there was pretty creepy, if you ask me.

:: OK, here's the thing. Lots of made of how hurt Lois Lane was that Superman went away for five years, but what about the world? Wouldn't people be resentful? They've just awarded Lois Lane a Pulitzer for telling the world that they don't need Superman, after all.

And how did he leave, anyway? Did he make an announcement to the world, or did he just up and go, leaving everyone to figure out that he'd gone when the crime rate in Metropolis suddenly went up? There's a whole interesting tale to be told not in Superman's return, but in his absence. None of that is here.

:: Finally, how much of the continuity from the original films are in play? It's pretty clear that the events of Superman II happened, so are General Zod and friends still around?

:: Over on the FSM boards, lots of people are burning the score for this film in effigy, but I rather enjoyed it. I liked hearing the "Growing Up" theme from the first film, especially since it's one of John Williams's most gorgeous melodies and it only occurs in one scene of one movie. I also loved how John Ottman scored this film's "Superman and Lois flying" sequence -- since Lois is now resisting her attraction to Superman, it made perfect sense to me that the music for this sequence kept referencing the classic "Can You Read My Mind" love theme without coming out and giving it a full-throated statement.

I'm strangely conflicted about Superman Returns. Part of me sees lots of problems with it, while another part was just so damned satisfied with it! Strange.

Now, if we can just get that Wonder Woman movie....

(Oh, and I saw a trailer for Spiderman 3. It pisses me off that apparently they have enough footage to make a trailer that good, and still we have to wait until next May for the damn movie. Yeesh.)

Sentential Links #54

At last, it's that time again for a short hop around Blogistan, or at least my little sector of it.

:: The more naive members of the environmental sector have been suckered into this line of thinking, too -- especially the college kids, who imagine we can just divert x-amount of acreage from Cheez Doodle production and re-direct it to crops devoted to making liquid fuels for Honda Elements. They need to get some alt.brains.

:: The media is guilty of publishing stories which might harm the political interests of the President, not which could harm the national security of the United States. But Bush supporters recognize no such distinction. Harming the "Commander-in-Chief in a time of war" is, to them, synonymous with treason. Hence, we have calls for the imprisonment of our national media for reporting stories which tell terrorists nothing of significance which they did not already know, but which instead, merely provoke long-overdue democratic debates about whether we want to be a country in which we place blind trust in the administration to act in total secrecy.

:: No one has challenged these stories or other similar ones on any major point of fact; to the contrary, the reporting is widely viewed as being entirely correct on the main issues, and further revelations have confirmed their accuracy. So the crime -- and remember that Barone and others are speaking of crimes here -- is that the press is reporting stories contrary to the administration's wishes.

:: This ought to finally convince the liberals and the MSM of the dire threat that Saddam presented in the fall of 2002. (I'm convinced!)

:: Let’s clear this up once and for all: cowboys are gay. Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay. Hobbits, on the other hand, just like going on extended backpacking holidays with their live-in male gardeners, during which they exchange soulful and significant glances and cry and hug and say “oh, Sam!” in a way which, if they were cowboys, would be totally gay, but, seeing as they are hobbits, just totally isn’t. Then the gardener marries the girl from scene 2 who didn’t get any lines, and then Frodo, the confirmed bachelor, goes on a permanent boating holiday with a bunch of “elves”. Dead butch behavior if you ask me.

:: Talking on a cell phone while driving is like mixing Valium and Jack Daniels – not a good idea. (I don't even own a cell phone, and I've already decided that text messaging was invented by the f***ing Devil. Seriously, folks -- nothing is so important that you have to sit there typing on this tiny-assed keyboard to someone else to say it, and it's certainly not important enough to do while walking in public.)

:: On reading the WEST WING Scriptbooks, you come to realise that the legends about Aaron Sorkin are true. Specifically, the one about directors having to lean on the actors to speak faster. (I was crushed the other day to discover that for some reason, the interactive tour of the West Wing White House set on the Season Two DVD doesn't work on my player. Dammit!)

:: What is with JKR? Does she get so lonely writing away in her study that she feels the need to pop out on occasion wailing "Death, Death!" (Well, it's kind of like what the big comic book companies used to do -- whenever there'd be a Big Massive Storyline in the offing, they'd preface it by assuring us of the forthcoming tale's gravitas by promising that characters would die. It got to the point where the most effective deaths in comics weren't presaged at all, like when Detective Jean DeWolff was bumped off in Spiderman.)

:: Every day is like a kid’s drawing, offered to you with a strange mixture of ceremoniousness and offhand disregard, yours for the keeping. Some of them are rich and complicated, others inscrutable, others barely more than a stray gray mark on a ragged page. Some of them you manage to hang on to, though your reasons for doing so often seem hard to fathom. But most of them you just ball up and throw away.

All for this week.