Author: Dave

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tommy of concierge

Many a night started off right sitting here.
I know, I’ve been listening to this album for nigh on a month straight now – but I still crave it on the drive to work in the morning. Even with new and excellent distractions like the Mono and Dungen albums, I find myself still coming back to it, over and over. I like it so much I gotsta get it to you, so here ’tis – fresh and steaming, the 2nd cut off the Arcade Fire album Funeral. Enjoy. In addition, I dunno what language this guy is singin’ in, but the album is just indomitably rad? but don’t take my word for it, listen to this and be convinced. The intro paragraph is over, but here’s more music from Dungen and Arcade Fire.

Remember the last time I was in Taiwan? Yeah, I do too. Anyway, I was there for two whole weeks that last time. That’s the kind of stint where a brother starts feelin’ right comfortable near the end. I mean, the hotel is where I’ve gone home to for two weeks every night, so the hotel gets to feeling quite a bit like a surrogate home. And the hotel work puts us up in while in Taipei is nothing but class, class all the way I tell you. I mean, I’ve written about the princely way guests are treated, the plush accommodations, and awesome staff – because they really do cater to your every whim. I love staying there, I love heading to the bar each night for a bloody mary or two, if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m half way ’round the world from my real life – I might not mind staying at that hotel forever. Anyway, this is going somewhere, I promise.

Last time I was there, I had accumulated some twenty-odd nights of patronage at the hotel this year, and they give you little perks based on the amount of time you stay within a year. I had gotten little manicure kits, free massages and spa treatments, free laundry services, free food, candies on my pillow, all sorts of awesome little goodies. And, having really connected with the bar staff and spent a couple nights going out and karaoking with them, I was more than satisfied with my two-week stay. On my day of departure, the hotel left a feedback form in my room. Having had such an enjoyable stay, I felt obligated to let them know. So, before I went to bed that night I sat down and filled out this little form.

I mentioned how much I enjoyed the stay, and in the write-in portion made sure to compliment the entire staff of Henry’s Bar – giving special nods to Tracy and a friendly waiter who always mixed my bloody mary’s extra well. I also mentioned that the wireless access point that served Henry’s Bar seemed to be flaky. Other than that, I left that little form on my pillow – a glowing review of a well-enjoyed fortnight. And that was that, I had all but forgotten about that little form. Until yesterday, that is.

Yesterday I went to check my “mailbox” at work (really just a big hanging-file cabinet with a folder for me, and everyone else, in it). Lo and behold, a letter from the hotel! Get a load of this (click for a larger version):

Your opinion counts.

Oh man, that is classic. First off, it tells me that this hotel most likely responds to each and every piece of feedback they receive – which is just another example of how rad the place is. Second, on the whole it’s just crackin’ me up. They make it sound like the spotty wireless in the bar ruined my otherwise spotless trip to Eden, like I was gonna be doing serious work in a smoky bar half-torn on bloody marys. I only wanted an internet connection to surf around and maybe read Fark or something. And I love how they acknowledge my comments about the bar staff and waiter in particular, just awesome. If I was a VIP at twenty-some nights, I’m gonna be a freakin’ rock star the next time I go. What a great letter, I love that hotel.

Did you guys read this? Do people not read? Or don’t care that this was why we voted for war? Sorry, I almost managed a whole entry. This blog has inline media, and as a rule that means I don’t type as much. For more reading, check out this site – pretty interesting stuff.

G’night, Dave out.

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news whore

A woodcut. No connection whatsoever.
Good night, went crazy and bought blinds for all the windows in the house – hung about 2/3 of them tonight… super simple and really makes the place look a lot better. Sharaun got the results of her MRI back today, a near-complete tear of her ACL – which they say is actually slightly worse than a complete tear for some reason – and a probable meniscus tear as well. Intro paragraph over.

As I’ve commented on a couple times before – I don’t know if it’s just me, or if it’s something conditioned into GenXers, but I have a terribly distrusting nature when it comes to a lot of things – politics and news in particular. It’s just hard for me to take anything at face value when I hear/read it in the news or from a politician’s mouth. Perhaps this has something to do with coming of age at the same the the internet did, when the dissemination of information became almost instantaneous, and the credibility of that information became much more suspect as the digital age simplified forgery and fakery and exaggeration to child’s play. Any person can post any information they want, and reach wider audiences than ever before. Not only this, when it comes to news and politics, I was weaned on things like the Iran Contra hearings – I came to know that people lied, even important people. I came to know that the news was sensationalist, and often pandered to particular “target” audiences. And, after time, I came to see the sometimes subtle partisanship in almost all forms of media and news. Maybe some would say I came to “imagine” these things, that I’m paranoid – but I honestly do have a hard time believing everything the news or Candidate A/B tells me. It seems like everyone lies, or adds a twist to things.

One more thing about me, I’m a news-whore. I am constantly and habitually taking 30sec away from work to point my browser to one of the many news sources I frequent. Unlike my I-don’t-know-where-it-came-from mistrust of media and politics, I can pinpoint exactly how where my fascination with the news started. September 11, from that day I on was refreshing the news webpages at least once every half hour to see what was going on out there. That day I became the addicted news-fiend I am now. However, I have somewhat of a conflict of interests here. Being that I both can’t get enough of, and have a hard time trusting, the news. For this reason, I tend to frequent a lot of varied news sources. I usually start off at CNN, for my dose of semi-sensationalist US-focused stuff. I then bounce around between a smattering of liberal and conservative new sources like IndyMedia and Fox News, before I hit the view-from-the-outside sources like BBCNews. Finally I usually wrap it all up by stopping by some news aggregators like Google’s News page and NPR’s front-page roundup. I figure a quick glance at it all is better than single-sourcing. Whatever. How can I type two paragraphs about where I get the news?

I’m beginning to have serious doubts about my witch project. With things changing so drastically in this late part of the game, I’m wondering if she’ll ever even fly. I’ve all but decided that I’m moving away from the original concept of the witch moving up and down a static line, and I’m now going with an adaptation of the Axworthy ghost “big belt driven loop” system. Not only do I think it’ll look better (I can make the witch fly a constant circuit around the yard, where she’ll cover much more ground and her flight path will be much more realistic), I think it’s engineeringly possible (I made up that word). In fact, if I can get it working, I think an Axworthy-style witch would use the prop to its fullest potential. Now to get it done. I bought some ingredients at the Home Depot today, and have been formulating the “new new” plan. I think it’ll work, but it’s really coming down to the wire. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve been accused of being a little Moore-ish in yesterday’s over-simplification of the “unchecked savages” rationale for war. And, I admit, I did of course inflate the argument by adding little one-liners about “Baptist” church on Sunday and “God-fearing” Americans. The standard premise of the argument is not nearly as ridiculous as I made it sound: that we were bringing some retribution to a nation of people that has too long been permitted to murder, rape, and plunder at will. Adding the notion of ever-righteous, duty-bound world-policing Americans was more for comedy than anything, but also not entirely farce: as I know from experience some people justify it this way. In other words, there is a whole spectrum of degrees to the “making the world a better place” rationale, not just the for right extreme of Democratizin’ and Jesus-lovin’n up that mongrel culture. I’m sure there are people who feel like Iraq’s number simply finally came up on the “you been pullin’ this crap for too long” list, and now they’re getting a bit of well-deserved body-checking.

That’s fine, and less extreme than my original explanation, but I think it still relies on the fact that a whole country, or even a whole culture or religion, is, or has become, “bad.” (Wow, look at all those commas, but I think it’s still grammatically correct, right?) I mean, is not their argument an over-simplification as well? To make a blanket-statement like “that country” or “those people” need to be corrected? All the people in the country? All the people of that religion or race? Really, all of them? Here’s where, I suspect, we’d get into the numbers game. Like the insurance industry, the war industry must have some math they use when talking about “justifiable” non-enemy losses. I mean, to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs… war is a dirty business, right? So maybe the “majority” of the people in that country, race, or religion are bad… and the war machine can “write off” their loss to the greater good. I don’t know. Again I fear I’ve over-simplified. All I wanted to say was, if this is you’re reasoning for the war – I don’t agree but can kinda, looking sideways, see where you’re coming from.

Lord, I gotta get off this political thing. I’m sorry folks, I don’t know what’s come over me. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this anymore. To change subjects, I’ve been listening lately, almost exclusively, to the new Mono album. Some Japanese band filed on the wordless-loud/quiet-noise that is “post-rock” shelf next to Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, GSYBE, A Silver Mt. Zion, etc. Great background music to have in the cans at work.

If you’ve got time, I found this a fascinating read. If you don’t have time, your own fascination will have to wait. Dave out.

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Snap into a unilateral war! Ooooh yeeeahh!!
Upgrading the TiVo was an awesome idea. Although, I hate talking about it because it makes me seem addicted to the teevee. While that’s not the case, there are some shows which I am now happier for being able to watch on demand. The Daily Show, for instance, is outstanding, and I never seem to catch it when it’s regularly on. Also, I like recording those sensationalist news-magazines like Dateline and Primetime Live, because sometimes they are awesome. Otherwise, I’d rather be on the computer.

Overcome by laziness and awash in a sea of apathy, I once again made less of my evening than I could have. I wanted to work on the witch, I need to mow the lawn, instead I chose to sit here and write. The grass is long, the witch is not done, and I’m only one lousy paragraph better to show for it. Now I’m sitting here falling asleep and watching the one where Barney is acting sheriff for eight hours and arrests the whole town, that Barney.

You know, I heard an amazing argument in favor of the war recently. The “those people have been allowed to be unchecked savages for too long, and we’re finally taking a stand and showing them we won’t tolerate it.” Whoa whoa, what? I mean, I’m paraphrasing there, but the basic argument is that “these people” (I assume we mean Muslims, or maybe even the slightly more racist, “dusky races of the sands”) are inherently savage and violent. What’s more, we Americans, God-fearing examples of truth and justice, are obligated to swoop in and change them. We have intelligent people in this country who can justify this war as some big “charm school” for the heathens of the Middle East. Rope them wilders, slap ’em on the knuckles with a ruler, and show them the error of their ways. Help them establish a real country where they go to a Baptist church every Sunday morning. Real, intelligent people think this. This, I don’t understand.

You wanna see something really disturbing, check out this website. The internet is gross, I wonder how representative it is of our collective thinking? I really don’t feel motivated, I’m outta here. Dave out.

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hours and hours of wasted time

Hark! I am swollen with milk. Bleed me.
Nice laid-back weekend, once again the witch-project was neglected as I worked mainly on my own computer and upgrading our TiVo. In one of the easiest mods I’ve ever done, Erik and I slapped in an extra 120GB drive and upping the recording capacity from 40hrs to 141rs. Not that I was really using all 40hrs or anything, it just seemed like a fun thing to try. Now I can keep unlimited amounts of old Andy Griffith and Leave it to Beaver, for, something.

Last week I went back and read the transcript of Thursday’s debate, and believe me it resonated much more in writing when I had time to re-read and digest it all. If you missed the debate, or even if you saw it, I’d recommend reading the words in print. Sometimes, when watching it on TV it’s easy, at least for me, to get distracted – and the candidate’s answers end up sounding like random strings of politic-talk. In writing however, it’s much easier, again, for me, to see the point each was trying to make – and the intelligence and speaking skills of each comes through better. Anyway, reading it again drew out the hermit-of-a political commentator in me, but I shall not bore you, or shall I?

If there was a candidate who was pledging to kill babies if elected, but place no restrictions on gun ownership, and a candidate that wanted to heavily restrict gun ownership to small firearms for self-protection but would kill no babies – who would you vote for? It’s an unfair question, I know – but I’m trying to use it to illustrate a point. I just think, for this election, there are some issues that should bear more weight on peoples’ votes than “pet” issues. And I’m not trying to water down any one issue – if it’s important to you it should bear in your choice – but maybe, just perhaps, in the times and age we live in right now, voters may want to make some concessions to their idea of a “perfect” candidate, in order to avoid catastrophe.

There, I’ve said it, and I know the argument is full of holes and not really well-thought-out, but I think maybe, with a stretch, you can see what I’m driving at. Are you fiercely anti-bovine-growth-hormone? Great, glad you’re opinionated? but perhaps, in light of what’s going on in the world today – you’d better serve our country by voting for someone who’s less anti-BGH than you, in the interest of solving bigger, badder problems first. Then, next time around, when we have some peace and aren’t under threat of attack – then, then you can cast your votes based on the candidates’ stances on bovine growth hormones. Does that make sense?

I know, enough about politics right? But they’re just so dang interesting, I mean, but watch this video, and then read the latest over at Drudge’s place – Kerry is a no-good cheater! It’s like a big, terrible soap opera. We can watch the whole terrible, awkward drama unfold a little more this week with the vice debate on Tuesday and the second presidential debate on Friday – both of which are set to record on my newly-hugified TiVo. Bring on the politics.

I don’t even know, I’m not writing anymore. I’m going to bed. Dave out.

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mistaken identity I

But I need it to sleep!
The debates were on, I watched them. I will write about them later maybe. Intro paragraph over.

Last night I was up late working on my computer, and late-late, not just late. It was about a quarter ’til two in the morning when I heard my cellphone ring back in the bedroom. As with all unexpected late-night calls, I expected some terrible news – so I went back to grab it. I didn’t recognize the number, so I took the phone out of the room to answer so as to not wake up Sharaun. When I answered, there was a very obviously drunk girl on the other line responding to my “Hello?” with “Who is this?” “Who is this,” I replied, to which she responded, “Who is this?!” We went ’round like this for a bit before I finally asked who she was trying to call, at which point she started sobbing and said “I don’t even know.” “Well,” I said, “What number were you trying to dial? Because I’m pretty sure you got the wrong one.” “I know I got the wrong number!,” she sobbed, “I don’t even know who I’m trying to call.” Being as this whole exchange was hilarious to me, and I had nothing better to do while my RAID array rebuilt, I decided to stay on the phone.

“I lost my cellphone, and I need it back,” said the girl, “I’m so effing drunk.” “Yeah, I can tell, where are you now, are you OK?” “I’m at home,” she said. “Well then, I think the best thing for you to do is drink a lot of water and go to bed, you can find your phone in the morning.” “No! I can’t find it in the morning, you don’t understand! I need it now! I have so many important numbers in there, everyone I know! Who is this?” “This is Dave, remember, you called me by mistake and now you’re talking to me.” “Yeah, hi Dave, nice to meet you. This is Katie, and I can’t find my cellphone, can you help me?” “Wait, Katie from Tahoe Joes Katie?” “No!,” she cried, “Not Katie from Tahoe Joes Katie, Katie who lost her cellphone Katie!” I laughed. “Don’t laugh at me, it’s not funny! Everyone was mean to me tonight. Some guy got so mad at me and took me home, all because I wouldn’t have sex with him. How old are you?” “I’m twenty-seven, you shouldn’t hang out with that guy anymore. Be glad he took you home.” “Twenty-seven! I’m eighteen” “Wait, you’re 18?! Where were you drinking?” “At a friend’s house, I don’t even know where.” “I gotta tell you Katie, being that it’s like 2am and you don’t know who you’re calling or where you were, I don’t think you’re finding this phone tonight. You should just go to bed and find it in the morning.”

“I already told you Dave, I can’t find it in the morning! I have to go to work. Can you drive?” “Umm, yeah, I can drive. Well, what time do you have to be at work?” “Three in the afternoon.” “Three?! You have all morning to find it!” “Nooooo!, I can’t, I need it now… important numbers… everyone was mean… guy yelled at me, etc. Can you come pick me up and help me look for my cellphone?” “I don’t think so Katie, it’s kinda late.” “I live? (here she gave me detailed directions to her address, not far from me).” “Listen Katie, when you wake up in the morning, if you remember that you talked to some random dude last night for like 30min about your cellphone, and then freak out because you think you remember giving him your address – just try to remember him saying, ‘I’m not writing any of this down,’ OK?” She laughed now. So far we’ve been on the phone about a half hour.

“So come over and pick me up and help me find my phone.” “I thought you didn’t know where it was, how many places did you go tonight?” “Two. Two houses and then in that mean guy’s car. He yelled at me because? blah blah.” “I know, I know. Well then, your phone can only be in one of three places, just go look in those places tomorrow.” “I can’t, blah blah.” “Well listen, what kinda phone was it? Nokia? Motorola?” “No, it was a Sanyo.” “Oh, no worries then, you can get a new one for like two bucks at Wal Mart.” She stops sobbing to laugh. “How old are you again?” “I’m still twenty-seven.” “Yeah, I remember you told me that.” “Yes. Yes I did.” “So are you coming to get me?” “Uh, no, probably not.” “I need my phone!!! Why did I drink so much?! Everyone was mean to me, my friends left me!”

Oh man, I talked to this poor girl for like 40min, until 2:30am last night. I ended up calling her cellphone for her on 3-way, and we got her voice mail. We talked about this mean guy who wanted her to “go farther than she wanted to,” and I gave her some 27-year-old-to-18-year-old “fatherly” advice to stay away from such dudes. It was a hilarious conversation.

That’s it, I have no more. Be happy with the story, it’s hard to type all those quotation marks and get a conversation down in writing. Dave out.

Posted on

and my brain folds

Leave now or be ever remembered by the void your bones create in lava.
Mmm… post rock. How many times have I written of thee and thy apocalyptic sound? How fitting that I find another great band tonight, and listen to their clamour as I read about the impending asplosion of Mt. St. Helens. For real y’all, that thing is ready to blow. It might as well be shooting molten earth from my speakers right now as I bang my head, in a mathy kinda way, to some old Mono albums. Rad. Right now I’m drinking straight out of a two-liter bottle of root beer, I don’t even care. Intro paragraph over.

Today (yesterday, for those who don’t understand my nightly posting schedule) was a good day at work. Not because I got some praise or anything, but because I worked hard and got a lot done. And at the end of the day, or, around 7pm, I had my junk ready and was able to head home with a clear conscience. Sometimes the best days are when I’m just busy enough that I’m hovering right above that “one more task and my brain folds” line, and that’s what today was. I was right at the limit of my multitasking, a limit which I consider to be pretty respectable. The day ended well too, with a free communal meal at Anthony’s place, where I managed to draw a couple cold ones off the keg before it sputtered out. Yeah, just about the right end to a productive day.

I contrast days like today with their antithesis, days I like to chalk up to dissolution. Maybe I’m the only one who has these days, I dunno, maybe I’m the only one who can sail through them without guilt. I’m talking about days where I come into work, and literally don’t do a dang thing unless it’s unavoidable. Most of the time, you end up doing something, because just being there seems to make people want to ask you questions or answer e-mail. But there are those rare days where my brain checks out and I’m just sitting there. I dunno, in the beginning when I started working at my job – I was new and there wasn’t much to do, so I would always go home feeling guilty for taking a paycheck. Nowadays, things are so busy I relish the slow times, giving myself one-off “working vacation” days when there’s nothing pressing to attend to. It’s just, sometimes, you get a bit tired of it all – and need to check out. Or, at least, I do.

You guys wanna hear some crap? Well, if you remember, I was recently complaining about having to shell out two deductibles to our auto insurance because a) Sharaun’s car got broken into, and b) her windshield cracked down the middle when she washed it with cold water on a hot day? Well, that was the second windshield she’d been through on that car since we bought it, only a year ago. We got it back two on Friday, today is Wednesday. Today a rock flew up and shattered her windshield. Again. For the third time her windshield is broken.

You can imagine the scene. It’s circa 3pm yesterday and I get a phone call at my desk, “Why can’t I just have an effing windshield?!?!” “What?,” I reply. Through sobs I hear, “A rock just flew up and broke my windshield!!” A frustrated teary scream and then, “I don’t understand!! Why?!?!” “Calm down,” I urge, holding back my own rage at the fates for casting us this hand, “We’ll get it fixed, I know it sucks but it’ll be OK.” Why y’all, why? Like I said, the insurance agency must be taking one hell of a toll and paying out their ass for all the hurricane damage – so they’ve got adjusters on the roadside chucking rocks at passing cars to make up for losses. Well we’re done, stop breaking our junk and leave us alone.

11:30 in the PM, time for me to put away the root beer, turn off the lights, and hit the hay. G’night. Oh, and, hey new kid, the block welcomes you. Dave out.

Posted on

danced until we were sweaty

I'm down!
I wonder what percentage of the food bought and brought into American homes just ends up getting thrown out. I mean, I know at our house we’re constantly throwing away leftovers and stuff that’s spoiled because we bought and never used it. Whole tubs of old chili right down the disposal, a half-eaten hunk of cheese that’s now mold-ridden, a steak that stayed too long in the freezer and is caked with ice; we don’t discriminate on what we waste, we chuck it all. It’s something I’d really like to get better at, if not for the sake of knowing there are people in the world who are sick with hunger, at least for the more American reason of maximizing our food expenditures. It’d be interesting to see if big companies like Wonder have statistics on how much of the bread they produce will ultimately end up, uneaten, in a landfill. I bet it would be pretty shocking.

I hate it when you get a defective coffee cup, you know, one that leaks around the little paper seams? No matter which way I turn the little drinking-hole, some coffee still seems to dribble out from that mysterious breach. Now I’ve got coffee on the keyboard, and all over my hand. Stupid Starbucks, for $1.17 you’d think I’d get a commemorative brushed aluminum mug every time or something. Back in the good ol’ days (and when I say that, I mean what I see on Andy Griffith), a cup of joe cost a cool nickel – free if you were a cop (I would surely qualify due to how often I’m laying down the law). Now I’m paying 25 times that for some beans that were probably hauled down a mountain by barefoot children, Starbucks’ whips cracking at their backs.

Tonight we went over for dinner and cocktails at Pat & Cynthia’s place (oh my, how 70s of us all… dinner, cocktails, and a game of Scrabble). Indian food was on the menu, and it was the yum. Keeping with the 70s theme, after dinner we all slammed several lines of coke and danced until we were sweaty, then went home with each others’ partners. It was a night thick with curry and dirty, unprotected sex. And for the drug users in my readership, I realize that you can’t “slam” lines… the verb just sounded funny.

I saw or read a story once, either on Rescue 911 or in Reader’s Digest, about a guy who got trapped under a his tractor. His wife was away and he lived miles from anyone, so he was basically stuck and left for dead. The story went on to talk about how the guy’s dog saved his life by keeping him from dying of thirst. The dog would run down to a pond, get all wet, and then run back to his trapped master who would suck the water off the dog’s fur. Apparently, the dog did this over and over to keep the guy from dehydrating to death. This went on for something like a week before the man’s wife finally got back home and found him. That’s a good dog right there. Maybe not the ultimate best dog, who would’ve also rolled in mashed potatoes and gravy, but pretty darn close. All the dogs I’ve ever had only roll in roadkill.

Wow, four paragraphs, and not a single one on the same subject. Sorry for the randomness, at least I wrote. I can’t believe that my wife read the blog… verbotten!

Dave out.