i have what can best be described as a complicated relationship with
inanimate objects
an irrational sentimental streak has long been
at odds with a sometimes insatiable technolust
and an expectation for my shit to keep up with my deadly combination of
carelessness and demanding lifestyle
i had a pile of old macs just because i hated the idea of throwing away useful things
even if they weren't the least bit useful to me
i still adore my old titanium powerbook
which never let me down
but i wanted its replacement
which did
i think it perfectly reasonable to set the timer on my slr
and toss it in a snowdrift
or to ask my car to ford a stream
or drive back from alabama with hardly any brakes
yet i cried real tears when i had to part ways with my van
harder lessons in life have put some of this in perspective over the years
moving enforced a culling of the precious junk
a busy schedule meant less time to spend making sure smiling yellow people were
well cared for
and through all of that there emerge only a few mechanical
parts of your life
that truly stand out
so even in his old age as i
think back on all the stuff we've been through
and shop for his replacement
while realizing how little i've done for him
i still thank my car for everything he's done for me
and know that this is just the way we are
it has been some time since i've undertaken one
but sh1ft.org's photo projects are a good time
and a fine excuse to go out and try to take some interesting pictures
with the weather getting nicer and me getting
fractionally less swamped at work
and back on my bike
there's no better time to take a hack
and i do mean hack
at 26things
check back at the end of the month to see how it comes out
i bought a gamecube a few years ago for mario kart:double dash alone
it met my expectations
but only just
the depth of the gameplay just didn't measure up to the n64 version that hooked me
in the first place
the majority of the levels lacked the demented imagination of the prior version
and there were fewer shortcuts
wrong turns
and surprises
so even if we were to be measuring it by that alone
mario kart wii exceeds that mark by a significant margin
the courses are by turns vertiginous
dastardly
strange
and fraught with opportunities for your enemies
to fuck you up
the number of times i cuss out yoshi alone
should be enough to explain how much better it is
but the true sign of how awesome it is is that it's got me
sitting indian-style on the floor
three feet from the giant television
holding the steering wheel at arm's length
like maggie's toy at the beginning of the simpsons
twisting and leaning this way and that
and getting my ass kicked by eight-year-olds worldwide
went to the mall today
jessica
emily
and myself
are going to take
george w's economic stimulus package
a word to crackberry addicts
if i can use capital letters where required on my iphone
then you can use them on your beloved toys too
especially in email trails that wind up in front of outside eyes eventually
this probably seems hypocritical to readers of this increasingly
idiosyncratic
web page
but my two readers know that even in text messages
i tend to spell everything out fully and punctuate appropriately
for the sole reason that it just doesn't require that much
extra effort
capitalization is right out
still
mind you
but that's for my own personal use
no less
so just because you're important enough to have a device that
vibrates your pants
when you get an email
doesn't mean that your terse
sloppy
and frequently rude
missives
don't reflect badly on you
now is the time to say quite archly that the country should
eat its vegetables
and mean several related and useful things by it
the literal aspect of it is driven by the present rise in the cost of food
abetted by the fact that we pay people who grow it to turn it into something that
isn't food
what's worse
that something is fuel for that other insatiable american appetite
the automobile
of course ethanol is something of a white elephant as it is not efficient to produce
or very profitable if not for the rather hefty subsidies involved
who's to say if it's better than oil or not
come a time when we're out of oil it might be a good thing to be able to take corn
or switchgrass
and process it into fuel using cleaner energy
but the second half of this equation is the more figurative reading of
how to eat our vegetables
as a nation
right now
senators mccain and clinton
are both in favor of a so-called gas tax holiday
a reward for american consumers who have sacrificed so much
or to continue to abuse that metaphor
a thick slice of cake for the whiny kid
who pushed around the green beans on his plate
instead of eating them
whereas now is the best opportunity
when everyone's interests are aligned
to set the country to work on the apollo project-like
task of getting ourselves set to face the next century
instead of making it easier for everybody to limp along
and ignore the problem for another ten years
while carmakers and oil companies
continue to profit from our indolence
literal and figurative
we need someone with balls to grab the nation
by the scruff of its neck and say that it's time to change our habits
to maybe do without some stuff that we want and don't need
to say that sometimes doing great things is a hard thing for everybody and that
hard things require effort
effort
you may remember is something that requires work
as in it may create jobs
which are good
but doing hard things is not a way to get elected
getting elected is a short-term concern and that's why it's so tempting to promise short-term fixes
senator
don't let us leave the table until we're done
the tv was flipped to 'the big lebowski' on fuse
yet another music video channel all grown up and not showing videos
of course they mostly showed rubbish
but still
at any rate
it reminded me of something that was making the rounds at work this week
great movie rants illustrated solely with type
the story of the atheist soldier is fascinating and frightening to me
the man sounds as if his are reasonable and well-considered beliefs
and moreover are entirely in line with my own
and it's for that reason that the reaction to those beliefs is so worrisome
if one considers the military to be a microcosm of our country as a whole
then it merely reinforces the idea that's been heard on the tip of our leaders' tongues
unspoken but palpable
that it doesn't matter what your faith is as long as you have some
but that the lack thereof makes you a hollow person in their eyes
makes your motivations suspect
your decisions rooted in an uncertain place
like specialist hall i believe in plexiglas and steel and abs
and gravity and friction and seals and levers and pumps
screws and glue
electrons and fluids
these things exist and i can make them do stuff for me and for you
without intervention from any deity
i believe in human courage and ingenuity and that
good people will do good things for people
deserving and undeserving alike
but that you're a lot better off in the former category
but somehow by not believing in a ceiling cat
that's enough for some people in this country to somehow believe that this soldier's
good works alone are not sufficient enough a track record to say he's
a good dude
only some fictional good dude can confer that qualification
fortunately you can spend a lifetime in this country without
risk of being so judged
provided you live in a reasonably secular state and
travel in certain circles
but these people still vote
and they remind me that america has a vast capability to be stupid
so let's look forward to president mccain
but that's a rant for another day
i sit around
it's strange for it to feel like summer so early in the year
not so much because of the temperature as for the early onset of the
generalized ambience of it
the stench of the mill pond at work
the lazy and early commute home on a friday afternoon with the unspoken agreement that
nobody's really doing any hard work past noon
the windows flung open to let in the sound of the restless streets at night
in the case of bustling newton highlands this last can only mean one thing
if it's dark out and there's a chance i might try to catch up on sleep
then keyspan must surely be laying waste to the pavement outside
i feel like i should take a day off and unroll a sleeping bag on a desk in their office
and see to it that things are
put right
but i'd rather be playing wii tennis
i for one welcome our rapidly evolving
lizard overlords
and am glad that they are plant eaters
what if the t had money and gas prices were going sky high
and people were fleeing the suburbs
and we desperately needed better public transit
and it actually got built
[via universalhub]
then maybe nobody'd be giving the transit cops shit after a ball game
that's twice in a row now
last night after the complainer in question pointed out the obvious fact
that the reason there are outbound fares on the green line is solely to pay the salaries of
the greedy t employees wrangling red sox fans at fenway
the friendly t policeman decided that it was time to ask the gentleman how he'd feel if
he showed up at his day job and lectured him
it was pretty funny
he'll probably get in trouble for it
