Lucubratrix

On Spam

2008-04-19T02:08:00.003-04:00

Yes, the electronic kind. Or, I suppose, there's always this kind, but I doubt I can improve on this salient commentary.

Not that this is going to have any effect whatsoever, but seriously, if any more "people" leave comments reading "See Please Here," where "Here" is a link to a reputable site such as antispycompani.com.... I like comments as much as anyone, but I prefer that actual humans post them. Or, at the very least, if they have to be computer-generated, they should be entertaining, like the ones that come to my email account. I've had extremely good luck with my email spam over the past several weeks.

It will, of course, be very ironic if I get a comment on this post that says nothing but "See Please Here." Should that happen, I will naturally leave it up (I've been deleting them).

One Final Road Trip Thought

2008-04-18T15:58:00.003-04:00

Remember Oregon Trail? Of course you do. All those hours spent in your sixth grade computer class, watching your characters rapidly die of fever, starvation, drowning, etc., etc. At any rate, as I got into Idaho and Oregon, I began to see signs for the actual Oregon Trail, which I was loosely following for a while. If I squinted, the white 18-wheelers looked vaguely reminiscent of Conestoga wagons, and I began to expect that little black box to pop up in front of me informing me that I had lost a wheel, fallen into a river, had all my food stolen, or any of the other myriad things that could befall one. (On the other hand, I never made it nearly that far when I played Oregon Trail, so it was a particularly new experience.)

Day Seven: Pendleton to Lake Stevens, WA

2008-04-17T01:13:00.003-04:00

Made it. The roads looked like this:

Day Six: Springville to Pendleton, OR

2008-04-14T22:34:00.003-04:00

Sort of a slow day. Actually, a very slow day. About all I have to say is that New England drivers get a bad rap--Utah drivers are much, much worse. It's just that there's usually more room to avoid their idiocy than there is in Rhode Island or Massachusetts. Once I got about 100 miles from Salt Lake City, though, traffic disappeared, and it was back to the pleasant, nearly empty interstate I have come to know and love over the past week. About the only excitement was the snowfall near Baker City, OR. It's up in the mountains, and there was fairly heavy snow for about 10 minutes. There was also quite a bit of snow still on the ground, as you can see.

Day Five: Cameron to Springville, UT

2008-04-13T23:36:00.003-04:00

Long day. I messed up planning my route, and it cost me a couple hours, leaving me 51 miles short of Salt Lake City, which was where I wanted to be tonight. After 12 hours on the road, though, I didn't feel like continuing on. On the other hand, the hotel here is probably the nicest of the places I've stayed on this trip, and not the most expensive. Also, I hiked for about an hour at the Grand Canyon, so how much can I really complain?

Once again, the pictures don't quite capture the vastness (not that I didn't keep trying--that's why digital cameras are so great).

That's all I've got tonight.

Day Four: Moriarty to Cameron, AZ

2008-04-12T23:32:00.005-04:00

Today was supposed to be my leisurely day of sightseeing, and I did indeed stop and see the sights. It was more tiring than anything else, though.

First stop was the Continental Divide somewhere in New Mexico. It qualifies as a sort of roadside attraction; Continental Divide items were offered for sale from a "real Navajo hogan." (It was closed.) Nonetheless, I stopped and took a picture.

Next, I stopped at the rest area in Lupton, AZ, just across the state line. It was fairly scenic, but I was disappointed that, despite signs promising poisonous snakes and insects, I saw no wildlife of any kind.

After that, I went to Petrified Forest National Park, and took the short loop through the Painted Desert. It was quite impressive, and as you might imagine, the pictures I took don't quite capture it. This one comes the closest. The park fauna was more satisfactory; while walking the short trail near one of the scenic overlooks, I saw five lizards and a jackrabbit.

A few miles past the park was Stewart's Petrified Wood, a roadside attraction offering a free (tiny) piece of petrified wood, and highly expensive larger pieces for sale. More impressive than the petrified wood, however, was the large dinosaur visible from the road. It's hard to tell from the picture, but that's a caveman in its mouth....

The last stop of the day was at the meteor crater outside Winslow, AZ. I squeaked in about half an hour before closing time and was delighted to discover that my military ID got me in for free, saving me $15. The crater was enormous; the people in the picture give some idea of the scale.

Day Three: Checotah to Moriarty, NM

2008-04-12T23:12:00.003-04:00

This was a long day, so long that I'm writing it on Day Four. I'll see if I can remember the salient details.

I remember noting that a good title for this post might be Oklahoma and Texas: The Flatness. It was quite flat, and remained so until I got into New Mexico. The weather was fine until I got to the mountains. Around Santa Rosa, I noticed dark clouds looming ahead, and a few minutes later, started seeing lightning. It looked as if the storm was off to the north, but of course the road curved, and it began to rain. Suddenly the two 18-wheelers ahead of me slowed down to about 40 mph, and although I couldn't immediately see why, I had a feeling that nothing good was happening up ahead. Then hailstones approximately the siz of aquarium gravel began pelting my windshield, first hitting with soft splats, then growing louder as the air grew colder and the hail harder. Most other drivers had the good sense to pull over, but I followed the truck ahead of me, which you can see in the picture. (I took the picture after the worst of the storm passed; safety conscious as always, I wanted to concentrate on my driving, Mom and Dad, if you're reading this.)

After the hail stopped, I started to notice a little difficulty in acceleration, which was due to the combination of increasing altitude and the desperate need for an oil change. I stopped in Moriarty, shelled out the big bucks for a room at the Holiday Inn Express (so I'm now qualified to perform surgery, etc., if their commercials are to be believed. I suppose I have to do it now, because I won't be able to say I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night for much longer).

Historic Route 66 runs through Moriarty, so I took this picture this morning as I headed out.

Day Two: Crossville to Checotah, OK

2008-04-12T23:03:00.009-04:00

I got an early start this morning and headed back out to I-40 west. I was a little worried about the severe thunderstorms I kept hearing about, but as it turned out, there was only a little bad weather, when it rained so hard I considered pulling over. I just followed the dark shape of the 18-wheeler ahead of me, and kept going.

Between Crossville and Checotah, of course, is Memphis, and Graceland. I stopped there for a quick tour of the mansion.

After that, I crossed the Mississippi River into flooded Arkansas. It was interesting how as soon as I crossed the river, the land got flat. The picture isn't very good, but you can see the tops of the trees sticking out above the water.

I'm spending tonight in Checotah, OK, home of Carrie Underwood. It would be snide of me to remark that upon driving through Checotah, her motivation to win American Idol becomes crystal clear, so I will refrain from such commentary. This is the view from my motel room; what you cannot tell from the picture is that there are train tracks just across the street. I don't mind trains, though, and even that close to my room, it's quieter than the fighter jets that flew over my Virginia Beach apartment.

Day One: Virginia Beach to Crossville, TN

2008-04-09T19:39:00.004-04:00

I finally got on the road around 8:30, having taken a detour to stop at Dunkin Donuts (one of two in Virginia Beach). Traffic was a little heavy heading into Norfolk, but it thinned out quickly. The weather was ideal for driving, and the stretch from Norfolk to Richmond was particularly scenic, with a light misting rain, and a pale green mist of new leaves on the trees lining the road, interspersed with flowering purple trees, and at one point, a massive lilac bush.

I stopped at a rest area just east of Lexington, VA for lunch, and climbed up a hill past the "official use only" signs to take a picture.

Traffic was very light everywhere except Knoxville, which I can (barely) forgive because it was rush hour. I almost ran out of gas in Knoxville, but managed to avert that crisis, although it was a narrow thing, especially when the first gas station I saw was out of commission, with all the pumps wrapped in yellow caution tape.

Some statistics from today's trip:
605 miles
Two states
Two time zones
Zero accidents
One roadside attraction - Foamhenge, in Natural Bridge, VA. It's like Stonehenge, only foam. I don't have a picture because I didn't get out of the car.

Roadtrip!

2008-03-28T20:23:00.003-04:00

Finally, a post in which I don't moan endlessly about early Christmas stuff. Blissfully, I will be spending the pre-Halloween season on an aircraft carrier, mercifully isolated from the mid-September infestation of Christmas items in stores. Despite the cramped quarters, long hours, etc., etc., this deployment may be worth it for that fact alone.

Before I can be on the ship, however, I have to travel from Virginia Beach, VA, to Everett, WA. I have a week or so to do it, and am looking forward to my first cross country trip since college. As it stands now, I'm planning on taking a route that, while longer, will take me through some new states. Thanks to the miracle of wireless Internet, I should have access for the whole week, and I anticipate updates from the road (or, technically, from a hotel/motel; I don't intend to update while I am, in fact, on the road).

Listening to myself talk...

2007-08-25T22:34:00.000-04:00

...or type, I suppose. Watching myself type? At any rate, I haven't got anything particularly interesting to say, other than to note that the primary culprit that spurs me to hum off-season Christmas carols to myself (the horror, the horror) is Boar's Head brand meats. Every time I'm at the deli counter and realize I have to request Boar's Head Low Sodium Turkey Breast, the Boar's Head Carol begins to run through my head, and it always takes several seconds before I realize what I'm doing.

Other than that observation, I wonder if the reason I'm so bad at keeping up with posting here is that I'm well aware that there is not an eager community of readers hanging on my every word, waiting with bated breath to hear my latest pronouncements on how to cure the ills of the world. And honestly, I'm not doing anything terribly interesting, either. If I were traveling, this would be a good forum to provide updates on my activities, post photographs, and the like, but all I can offer is commentary on my commute to Boston every morning (and I don't even drive there, so I wouldn't even be able to comment on Bostonians' renowned driving skills).

In Which I Confess a Flaw

2007-08-16T23:09:00.000-04:00

You know what bothers me? Well, any number of things; you could come up with various guesses such as people who run stop signs/red lights, or neighbors who steal your newspaper, and be entirely correct. Given that there are plenty of things that irritate me, I'm going to cut the guessing process short (as I flatter myself that anyone was, in fact, guessing), and confess that I have in mind one of my own bad habits.

Every so often, I find myself whistling a pleasant tune, not really thinking about it, only to discover, to my horror, that I am prematurely whistling a Christmas carol.

That's right. Although I dread mid-September and its attendant incorrect music and decoration (see previous posts), I myself am sometimes guilty of indulging in that very vice I so disparage. This is horrifying to me, both in that I could find myself unconsciously humming in the first place, and in that there seems to be some part of me that--it's almost too horrible to type--enjoys Christmas music during months that are not December.

It happened today, which is the reason for this post, but I have noticed it occurring on other occasions. At 26, I feel that I am somewhat young to be worrying about approaching senility, so I am forced to reach the above conclusion. Electric shocks or similar behavioral reinforcement may be in order; this would seem to be the only solution.

Random Complaints

2007-04-27T15:31:00.000-04:00

...First of all, having to sign in with a new account. It's an inconvenience, actually; the old one was fine. It's sort of like the cable company saying, "We've improved our services to please our customers. You now receive the Hallmark Channel, the Watching Grass Grow Channel, the Role-Playing-Game Channel, and five new home shopping channels. We're raising our rates so you can receive these exciting new offerings."

The main thing I wanted to post, though, was a reference to an old post in which I bemoaned the early onset of the winter marketing season, only to confess that I had participated by purchasing and drinking Sam Adams Winter Lager. I went on to say that if I continued at that rate, I would be drinking Sam Adams Summer Ale come April. Well... it's April. Any guesses as to what's in the fridge?

On Giving

2006-12-20T14:37:00.000-05:00

Those of my readers who celebrate Christmas (and probably those who don't) are no doubt familiar with the concept of mass-mailing Christmas cards. These cards are sent out at around this time every year, or earlier in the case of certain zealous relatives whom you have never met but who nonetheless reliably send you the Holiday Newsletter, in which they discuss the minutiae of their lives and the lives of their children. At any rate, these Christmas cards are often the sole contact with one's distant relatives, sent not because of any deep feelings of affection on either side, but because there is an obligation.

At any rate, the custom of sending Christmas cards requires the purchase of boxes of cards, often selling at exorbitant rates because, of course, you have no choice. Now, as Christmas is the season of giving and goodwill towards man, it seems only natural to buy cards that benefit some charity or other. There's only one problem: these cards are ugly.

Why is this? Is it so that people can demonstrate their utter devotion to charitable causes? I am so adamant about donating eighty cents to cancer research that I will check my dignity at the mailbox and affix my name to this abomination, rather than picking out a tasteful design and writing a check to the charity of my choice.

I would feel some guilt at mocking the appearance of these cards if, for instance, they were designed by cancer-stricken children. Maybe some of them are. If so, they are nowhere to be found, and the cards benefiting charitable causes are designed by adult... I hesitate to say "artists," as it's hardly art on the front, but probably these people would consider themselves artists, and probably consider themselves talented. The only justification for this is that these cards must have been designed at the lowest possible cost in order to contribute the maximum amount--although designing better cards would result in more people buying them.

The moral of the story is that I ended up with a tasteful box of cards, and will be writing a check directly to a charity instead.

Three Things

2006-12-03T21:10:00.000-05:00

These three confessions may make me unpopular, but I feel that it's time to come clean:

1) I don't like books on tape,

2) I prefer instant coffee to real coffee, and

3) I despise modern art.

Books on tape are like talk radio. I change the station when the music stops and the talking starts, and yet I'm expected to sit still and listen to a recording of someone reading a book for hours and hours on end. Worst of all is being trapped in the car on a long road trip when others want to listen to one of these "diversions." Now, it may well be a book I would otherwise enjoy. The reader may well have a pleasant voice and proper intonation. Doesn't matter. It's like sitting at a party and having to listen to someone go on and on about himself, and not be able to escape the conversation or change the subject.

The coffee thing is a bit less clear-cut. I think Starbucks coffee is almost undrinkable, while Dunkin Donuts coffee is very good indeed. Overall, however, I'm just as happy with a cup of instant coffee. It's quick, it's not bitter, and it responds better to reheating than does real coffee. The thing is, I've always pretended to be a coffee snob. Not really true. The only thing I ask is that my coffee remain uncontaminated by milk and sugar.

Finally, modern "art." Honestly, I can't think of anything produced after 1950 that has any value whatsoever (and there's not a whole lot after 1900). I'm only referring to the visual arts; there's been plenty of good music and cinema. The problem is that the visual arts have suffered since the advent of photography. Apparently technical skill is no longer a requirement; verisimilitude has gone the way of the dodo, and artists are no longer concerned with the ability to reproduce a human face. I don't mean drawing something that looks like a human--I mean drawing a face that looks like a particular person. Instead, we have srt that's supposed to make a "statement" that no one's intelligent enough to understand. I shudder to think of the hours of my life spent in modern art museums, hours I will never reclaim. Honestly, it's worthless. If you're creating art for the art critics alone, art that no one else will understand, what's the point, other than self-importance and conceit?

Irony

2006-11-08T11:20:00.000-05:00

Ask and you shall receive... or something like that. At any rate, a spam whose sender is quite certain she finds me attractive included the following attempt to throw off the spam filters: CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail/fax and its attachments may contain PRIVILEGED and CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION and/or PROTECTED PATIENT HEALTH INFORMATION intended solely for the use of Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers of New York (SVCMC) and the recipient(s) named above.

I assure you, the message contained nothing in the way of patient information (other than that "Becky" knows "for sure that i find your completely attractive," despite never having seen me--this must be some sort of disorder). The real humor in it is that it's allegedly from a Catholic organization. It reminds me of the building in downtown Providence, a Church House Built By The Glory Of God according to the inscription on the front. The building, naturally, houses a "gentlemen's club."

I'm going to buck the trend and say nothing about the election.

Season Treason

2006-11-02T12:55:00.000-05:00

...I knew I would love that phrase the moment I saw it.

So, it's two days after Halloween, and the holiday bombardment has begun. Yesterday evening's TV viewing was an explosion of Christmas-themed advertising--one senses the excitement of the retailers knowing that Halloween was finally over and they could release commercial after commercial after commercial overflowing with holiday cheer. That said, I have already had my fill of Brian the Big Lots Spokeself, and if those commercials are going to be crammed down my throat from now until Thanksgiving (when the voting for Big Lots Spokeself will, mercifully, conclude), I'm going to be precious short on Christmas cheer.

Don't get me wrong. I like Christmas as much as anyone. Really. I like the food, I like the carols, I like the family gatherings, the tree... but not until after Thanksgiving. Just as some people prefer that the food on their plates not touch, I prefer not to mix my holidays.

Of course, I am well aware that I'm fighting a losing battle. Still... wouldn't it be nice to reserve Christmas for, say, December?

Why Don't I Receive Better Spam?

2006-10-31T22:02:00.000-05:00

It's the familiar lament of everyone who has email: I log in, and my inbox is full of nothing but spam. The Nigerians want you to handle their money, people with indeterminate names want to sell Viiaaggrraa and Ciiiiaaalllllliiisss, and someone else wants to give you Free Pics Of Hot Babes Humping Robots.

Spam is a sad fact of life, and its existence is not my complaint (although I do wish my .edu address had better (read: any) filters). No, my complaint is, quite simply, that the quality of spam I receive has shown a marked decline. Stock tips? Free Rolex watches? Where is the humor here? Where is the Ig Nobel-winning prose asking me to handle the finances of the exiled Nigerian elite?

No doubt the stocks these people are attempting to sell would allow me to retire in comfort by the time I turn thirty, but a spare paragraph advertising Hott Stock Pixx followed by a nonsensical paragraph composed of sentence snippets that are intended to mimic a discussion of politics, world events, movies, sports, culture, etc., provides me with absolutely no entertainment. It's fortunate that I have other forms of amusement, because if I relied on my daily ration of spam for that purpose, I'd be out of luck. Messages from Adolph with the subject pharmacyStuff [aITh7CFqX1pbs2qviRiqBPJwB8... have no value of any kind.

There is, however, a ray of hope. A Mr. Masuda Shinyaku, MD/CEO/PRESIDENT of Masuda Chemical Industries Co., Ltd. Japan, wants me to act as his international representative due to unspecified monetary policies that are crippling his business. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, I need only provide him with various personal information, including but not limited to my phone number and marital status. In a separate communication, Ickenroth LaRouche is pleased to inform me that I have won an international lottery. (Sadly, I have probably made myself ineligible, as Mr. (?) LaRouche requested that I keep the award from public notice until the process is complete and the funds remitted to my account. Perhaps I can still enter the drawing for the 13 million euro prize at the end of the year....) It's small, but it's a start.

I mean, stock tips? What kind of spam is that? If I want stock tips I'll look for them in the Wall Street Journal. I expect more from my email.

At Least I'm Not The Only One

2006-10-27T15:44:00.000-04:00

The holiday marketing season is beginning to gear up in earnest, to the point that last weekend I saw a holiday-themed commercial--what to get your pet for Christmas. (Answer: little portable stairs to assist elderly/obese animals in climbing up on the sofa or the bed.)

There is, however, evidence that others are as disturbed by the trend as I am. In this article (unrelated to the holidays until the very end), we see a term I wish I had thought of: season treason.

As soon as Halloween is over, Madison Avenue will turn its full attention to another, even more important shopping season: Christmas.

In recent years, retailers and other advertisers have committed what Mr. Smith at Yankelovich described as "season treason" — moving up the starting date for holiday campaigns from the day after Thanksgiving to the day after Halloween.

Now that’s scary.

Scary, indeed.

On the other hand, I worry that I may be a hypocrite. You see, I have contributed to the rushing of the winter season through my purchase of a six-pack of Sam Adams Winter Lager. It is not Christmas-themed per se, but the pale blue and white label, not to mention the very name "Winter Lager," is far more suited to the winter months--snow and ice, and bare branches, not the autumnal colors we see around us now. Should I not have stayed with the Octoberfest, if I wanted a seasonal beer? I fear that I have, in my own small way, given the local liquor store an incentive to continue stocking seasonal beers ahead of the seasons they represent.

Oh well. At this rate, Sam Adams Summer Ale should be available by April at the latest, and I do like the Summer Ale....

In Which I Complain About The Weather

2006-10-18T16:40:00.000-04:00

Well, I guess we're due for another post.

It's currently at least 70 degrees outside. Due to the recent (seasonal, thank you very much) cool weather, it's a bit better inside, but that's not the point. The point is that I've been outside today, and I should not be fantasizing about shorts and sandals in the middle of October. It is, quite simply, hot outside. This is not right. If anything, mid-October should see snow flurries and frosts--I mean, if we're going to be unseasonable, we should err on the side of colder, rather than warmer.

As warm-blooded creatures, humans are better adapted to stand extremes of cold than of heat. And as a practical matter, it's better to be cold than hot, because when you're cold, you can always put on another layer. When you're hot, there's only so much you can take off before the neighbors call the cops.

There's also a certain satisfaction to cold weather. When it's cold outside, you can look forward to coming in and having something hot to drink, or putting on nice soft slippers, or sitting in front of a fire. Winter food is more satisfying--stews, roasted meats, fresh-baked bread....

Clearly the solution is for me to continue moving north. I should look into reindeer herding.

I'm Not Dead...

2006-10-15T14:23:00.000-04:00

...just apathetic. Also, I went on a mini-vacation which, while interesting enough for me, doesn't make for particularly scintillating reading. I spent most of the week on Martha's Vineyard, visiting some family friends who live there. Here's a picture:I'll also note that yesterday marked the first Christmas-themed commercial, two weeks before Halloween, and that holiday catalogs have been turning up relentlessly in the mail. Maybe later I'll find some untapped well of creativity and post something that people may want to read.

North Korea's Nuclear Test

2006-10-09T16:25:00.000-04:00

So, I may be in the minority on this one, but my first reaction is--so what? It changes nothing. We learned nothing from it. I mean, the test could hardly have been a surprise, and we already knew that Kim Jong Il is crazy. So they have it, and they tested it--is it really any different from having it and not testing it? The U.S. respose, therefore, should not be dictated by the fact that the North Koreans tested (successfully or not) a nuclear device. The analogy that springs to mind is that of a little kid wanting attention while Mom and Dad are talking about grown-up things. The kid interrupts and whines with no success until, finally, tired of being ignored, he dumps grape juice all over the rug. The Dear Leader also wants people to pay attention to him. Not to stray too much into psychoanalysis, but when your (deceased) father is still constitutionally the Eternal President and the Great Leader, there's probably some desire to get some recognition for yourself.

So, what should the response be? Nothing, for the moment. Sanctions or a blockade wouldn't do any good. Such measures wouldn't have any effect on the leadership, and they would hurt the civilian population. Trying to negotiate with the North Koreans isn't likely to work, either, since there's not a whole lot of good faith on their part.

The real risk, of course, is that North Korea will escalate things to the point of threatening Seoul or Tokyo. Kim is a) unpredictable and b) probably extremely misinformed about world affairs, isolated by the syncophants around him. He may not realize just how isolated he already is, and that threats against South Korea or Japan would only increase his unpopularity. And it is, of course, dangerous to make the assumption that surely someone in North Korea must have an idea of what's going on and the ability to keep the situation under control. The question is one of capability--do the North Koreans have a nuclear weapon they can effectively deploy? Until we know that, we can't respond. If in fact North Korea does have a weapon, the U.S. and China need to be prepared for the possibility of military action: quick, surgical airstrikes.

There's obviously more to be said on the subject, so this is in no way intended to be an exhaustive evaluation of options for dealing with North Korea.

A Sunset

2006-10-08T20:56:00.000-04:00

To make up for having nothing to say, I've decided to post a photo of this neat thing the sky did a couple nights ago. It only lasted a few minutes, so I was lucky to get a decent picture of it.

With regards to the previous entry, the New York Times seems to have seconded my call to buy Georgian wine. I must be on to something....

Buy Georgian Wine

2006-10-06T18:32:00.000-04:00

...no, seriously, it's pretty good. This isn't really a post about the superiority of Georgian wine, though; it's about the willingness of Russia to play hardball with the near abroad, and the willingness of the West to let it go.

Because Georgia has a pro-Western president and is moving closer to the United States and Europe, Russia has closed the borders and is rounding up Georgians in Russia. It sounds to me like a prelude to ethnic cleansing, although I doubt it will really go that far.

The dispute with Georgia isn't new. Russia has been encouraging the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for years, maintaining peacekeepers in the regions and offering Russian passports to the Abkhaz and South Ossetians. The Rose Revolution in 2003 exacerbated the problem.

It's interesting to me that so many people seem to think that Russia's geopolitical objectives have changed just because the Soviet Union fell apart. Yes, Russia is now a (nominal) democracy with a fledgling market economy, but it was never really about spreading Communist ideology, was it?

That said, the U.S. hasn't been willing to confront Russia on any of this. Part of it stems from an entirely reasonable desire to avoid restarting the Cold War (it would get a lot nastier with groups like al Qaeda as major world players, wouldn't it?), but part of it is the result of shortsightedness on the part of the decisionmakers. The problem is that the West won the Cold War, and so has forgotten about it. The Civil War is still a big deal in the South, and pretty much ignored north of the Mason-Dixon line, and similarly, Russia has not forgotten the Cold War. Unlike the Confederacy, however, it can rise again. It still has nukes, and that potentially makes it a big player--only the U.S. is ignoring Russian nukes in favor of theoretical Iranian and North Korean nukes.

Russia has no choice but to play hardball if it wants to maintain its influence. It doesn't have the soft power (McDonald's, Coke, pop culture) that the U.S. does. It's a shame that the West is so far allowing it to happen.

Hey, the least we can do is create more demand for Georgian wine....

Wanderlust

2006-10-05T22:27:00.000-04:00

If I could go to one place in the world, it would be the South Pole. Not too many people have been there, relatively speaking. It's nice and cold (for now), and there are penguins in Antarctica for me to see on the way. There's even history to be found there--not in buildings, but it's no less powerful for that. Anyway, it'd be a cool place to visit.

Next up is Rome. If not for the... limited... career opportunities, I could have been a classics major. As it is, I've had to read about Roman history on my own time, and I'd like to get there and see what's left of it for myself.

After that is Norway. I've only seen it from the air, on a flight back from Russia, but it looked pretty nice. What can I say, I'm pining for the fjords.

I'm hard-pressed to rank my choices after that. I'd probably even consider the tropics, despite my distaste for humidity and massive, many-legged insects.

Come to think of it, I can't think of many places I wouldn't want to see.

Reflections on the Season

2006-10-03T18:23:00.000-04:00

First of all, I wouldn't say that I have a favorite season. They each have something to recommend them, which is why I prefer to live in a place where all four seasons exist as distinct entities, as opposed to the South (i.e., the Virginia suburbs of DC), where summer and winter exist, but spring and especially fall are sad parodies of their true selves. I remember walking from my Arlington apartment to Georgetown on my way to class and crossing the Key Bridge. The Potomac sparkled below, and the lampposts on the bridge were decked out for the holidays with wreaths and ribbons. It was December. I was wearing short sleeves. This happened a lot.

Now that I'm back in Providence, I'm enjoying the transition from summer to fall. Every morning, there are a few more yellow leaves on the trees and sidewalks, and the oranges and reds are slowly becoming apparent. As I said before, I don't have a favorite season, but there's something about those late fall days when the sky is gray and the sun is going down late in the afternoon, and the branches of the trees are mostly bare, and the yellow leaves on the ground are slick from a light rain, and the streetlights are on. Even the fact that two more Christmas-themed catalogs arrived today can't damped my enthusiasm.

Happy Fall.

Things I Want To Do, But Can't

2006-10-02T19:15:00.000-04:00

This weekend, I think I will go to Home Depot and buy a hose. Then I will tie one end of the hose to a cinderblock. Then I will heave the cinderblock through the window of that house down the street where the students live, together with a note telling them to wash up the vomit from the sidewalk.

Of course, I won't actually do that. It's nice to think about, but it's one of those things best left to one's imagination, along with my idea of sitting at a particular intersection with a basket of eggs, egging each car that runs the stop sign. (I would need a lot of eggs.) Come to think of it, there are plenty of things that are fun to imagine but impractical to execute, and they don't all involve taking vengeance on drunken undergrads and incompetent drivers.

For example, when I was little, I wanted more than anything to be either a paleontologist or an astronaut. I would still jump at the chance to do either. The problem is that it would involve a radical change from my current career path. I've invested too much money in my education in international relations to go and spend more so I could do a spacewalk or dig up dinosaur bones. It's a shame, though, that our childhood ambitions fade like that. And they usually do. There are an awful lot of office managers in the world, and my guess is that very few of them played Replacing The Toner or Writing Condescending Notes To Staff To Be Posted In The Break Room when they were kids.

It's not that I dislike the path I've chosen. I liked it enough to go to grad school and immerse myself in questions about international security. It's just that it'd be pretty cool to go dig up a T-Rex or be the first person to walk on Mars. I guess the moral is to follow your dreams, even if they may seem impractical.

So, with that in mind... how much do hoses cost, anyway?

Customized At Last

2006-09-30T21:15:00.000-04:00

After putting entirely too much time and effort into it, I've managed to change the look to my satisfaction. I don't know if it's an improvement over the old look, but it's mine. Now that I'm happy with the way it looks, I can start posting again in earnest.

It's That Time of Year (Already)

2006-09-30T19:48:00.000-04:00

Those of you who have known me for a while will recall that one of my favorite things to bemoan is the ever-earlier encroachment of the Christmas season on the fall holidays. The proper time for the Christmas spirit is, at the very earliest, the day after Thanksgiving. In an ideal world, the Christmas season would begin on the first of December... the day that those children who celebrate Christmas begin to open their Advent calendars, when it is beginning to feel like winter, when there are no holidays between today and Christmas. And yet....

Every year, we are assailed with premature holiday cheer. Over a month before Halloween, the convenience stores are awash in black and orange. Fresh candy corn is on sale everywhere, and there are even private homes decked out with pumpkins fake or real. It is, of course, far too early to begin decorating for Halloween. The Halloween season (such as it is) should never begin until the leaves have started to fall from the trees in earnest.

It seems that things could hardly be worse, but today, as I innocently retrieved the mail, I saw the first Christmas catalogue of the season. The offender in this case is L.L. Bean, although I know all too well that others will follow. Tomorrow is October 1, which seems to be the day to kick off the Christmas season. Starting now, I face two full months of inappropriate holiday music and decorations, two months in which the spirit of the season is diluted beyond all meaning.

Ah, well. I complain about it every year, and every year, I find that nothing has changed.

Complaints of the Day

2006-09-21T10:22:00.000-04:00

You know what's annoying? Those ads with video. There was one on CNN's website just now, and it's very distracting to have some video playing while I'm trying to skim the headlines. These ads even offer the option of clicking to turn the sound on. Um, no. Why would I ever want to do that? Still, those aren't the worst. There is a special place in hell reserved for the man who developed those pop-up graphics that take over the entire screen and block the content you want to read and the links you might actually want to click on. (And it is a man, incidentally; I read a profile on him a while back in which he attempted to defend his vile creation. If someone wanted to send hate mail, it would go here, although the real offenders are the people who buy and design the ads.) Worse still, however, are the ones where the "close" button does not work. These despicable creations allow you to click on the ad itself to be taken to the website advertised, but attempting to hit "close" to get rid of the ad does nothing at all. The ad does not go away. It never goes away. If you really want to read the site infected with one of these ads, you're stuck leaving the site and re-entering until some other ad comes up.

A related phenomenon is the pop-up graphics on TV. I noticed this most recently on FX, while attempting to watch a movie the other night. Their ad for Nip/Tuck not only took up half the screen for several seconds, but it featured sound, loud enough to obscure the dialogue.

These sorts of ads only serve to irritate, and each time I see one, my resolve never to buy the product so advertised grows stronger. And yet, these ads have not gone away, which can only mean that somewhere out there, someone is actually clicking on these things. Some focus group must have said that a pop-up graphic with sound effects interrupting the show they were watching would instill in them a longing to watch Nip/Tuck, and any number of other TV shows, as FX is by no means the only offender. The real question is, where in the world did they find that focus group?

The Pope and Islam, Part II

2006-09-19T10:41:00.000-04:00

Having promised (or implied) more long posts, I now feel compelled to deliver.

I'll start with a follow-up to yesterday's post, noting a further irony in some responses to the Pope's speech.

Employees of the state body that organizes Muslim worship in Turkey asked the authorities on Tuesday to open legal proceedings against Pope Benedict and to arrest him when he visits the country in November.

Muslims worldwide have been angered by remarks the pope made in a lecture last week that they said portrayed Islam as a religion tainted by violence and irrationality.

I'll leave you to decide whether that's rational, or whether more people should listen to Hasyim Muzadi:

"The pope has apologized, and that’s enough, so let’s calm down," said Hasyim Muzadi, head of Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama. "If we remain furious, then the pope will be proved correct."

Now, we all know that Christianity also has an unsavory history of forced conversions and violence; e.g., the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades. Finally, there isn't as much emphasis placed on moderate reactions, these being relegated to the final paragraphs of news articles. That said, the response raises two possibilities: one, the Pope was correct, as shown by the violence and threats of violence; or two, moderate Muslims lack a global voice, and allow the radicals to speak for all of Islam.

The Pope and Islam

2006-09-18T16:44:00.000-04:00

I'm confused: Pope Benedict XVI, in arguing that violence is incompatible with the nature of God, quoted a medieval emperor who said that the only new things brought by the prophet Mohammed were "evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Muslims are angry at the Pope's apparent characterization of Islam as a violent religion, and some of them reacted like this.

The group said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as "the worshipper of the cross" saying "you and the West are doomed as you can see from the defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere. ... We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose head tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion (to Islam) or (killed by) the sword."

Islam forbids drinking alcohol and requires non-Muslims to pay a head tax to safeguard their lives if conquered by Muslims. They are exempt if they convert to Islam.

Others reacted like this.

On Friday, hardline cleric Sheikh Abubakar Hassan Malin told worshippers at his mosque to hunt down and kill whoever offended the Prophet Mohammed.

I'm just saying....

Yes, yes, I'm aware that the examples I've cited are not the only reactions from Muslims. Still, if you feel that your religion is being unjustly characterized as one of violence, then threats and acts of violence are probably not the best way to get that message across, right?