Cultural Osmosis

There's something called "learning by osmosis". With an internet search, I learned that "osmosis" is a scientific term that really doesn't apply to learning, but which has been bastardized into meaning "learning unconsciously". In effect, learning by osmosis is subliminal learning - one learns various facts simply by the act of being exposed to modern culture, even though one's intention might not have been to seek such specific knowledge. Indeed, one might have actually resisted learning certain things but was forced to learn them because a reference to modern culture might be inexplicable without obtaining certain facts.

The best example is Mr. Spock. Just about everyone knows who Mr. Spock is, and if you don't, I'm referring to the science-fiction character and not the man who wrote several books on child care. Even people who never watched Star Trek know who Mr. Spock is. Even people who hated any mention of Star Trek know who Mr. Spock is. Even people who don't read science fiction know who Mr. Spock is. Why? Because there are too many references to Mr. Spock as being a cool science fiction character, or being unemotional, or logical, or whatever. If you listen to enough bad jokes by a certain generation of comedians, you pick up the knowledge about Mr. Spock by context. He's this sort of monotone, emotionless character who represents logical thinking with all of its advantages and flaws. You don't have to really know anything else about him - at all, except that he's a science fiction character. (The nerve pinch and Planet Vulcan are just trivia.)

If you hang around long enough in modern life, you will be exposed to these Mr. Spock references even if you don't want to be. You will be forced to learn something about him - the bare minimum if necessary - or many jokes or allegories will make no sense whatsoever. Even without watching Star Trek, one has created a shorthand sketch of Mr. Spock, a sketch fleshed out just enough so that one can function.

I've found that as one gets older, this process becomes more and more difficult. Part of the reason, as Adam Cadre suggested, is that older people become much more selective in how they interact with popular culture. Part of this choice is forced - with job and family responsibilities, one has less time to devote to movies and junk culture. Another part of this selectivity comes with...well, there's no nice way to put it. Your taste improves over time. The kind of stuff you would have let pass in the past - stuff that tvtropes.org loves to write about - is no longer amusing, not even "ironically", whatever "ironically" is supposed to mean. Stuff you thought hilarious or compelling for whatever reason at age 25 sucks at age 45.

When one was younger, if one didn't understand a pop culture reference, you just watched some more TV until you got it - and trust me, when you're young you watch a lot of TV. Middle-aged people don't have that kind of free time. Between watching the kids and handling family emergencies, they barely have time to surf the internet and look up these obscure people to whom they're exposed. They just let it pass, and fall further behind on the pop culture curve.

I, for one, have gotten to the point where I no longer listen to popular music. This is a shame. Up to 1995 I was hip and current to what was going on; after 1995 not so much. I have a set of vague categories into which 21st-century popular musicians fall in:

1. Tuneless pop-tarts (Britney, Christine Aguilera, Jessica Simpson)
2. Idol singers (Kelly Clarkson, Fantasia)
3. Pre-teen phenoms (Justin Bieber, The Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus)
4. Rappers
a. Cartoonish rappers (Lil' Wayne)
b. Dangerous gangsta rappers (50 Cent)
c. Businessman/Fashion rappers (Kanye West, Jay-Z)
5. Lady Gaga

If you were to ask me who T. I. was, I couldn't tell you - I don't know enough about T. I. to snap him into one of my three predetermined rapper categories. As far as my rap universe is concerned, all rappers have to fall into one of those groups. There are a few exceptions: Eminem falls into d. White Rappers and Lil' Kim falls into e. Girl is a Whore Rappers. However, categories d. and e. only have one person in either of them so they barely count as categories. You might as well just say "and Eminem and Lil' Kim" and go forward.

Categories one through five, as far as I'm concerned, are the entire modern musical universe. Whenever I hear of someone, I figure out just enough about them to throw them into one of the five categories above.

And of course, there are television shows that I haven't seen either. Luckily for me, most of those shows I haven't seen are reality television, and all of its 'stars' can be thrown into two categories.

1. Odious reality TV stars (The Real Housewives of Wherever, Kate Plus Eight)
2. REALLY odious reality TV stars (The Hills, Jersey Shore)

There used to be another category called "Pleasant Reality TV Stars" but that was canceled somewhere around the year 2000 - you can't get a reality show these days unless you're 'outrageous' - and modern Hollywood doesn't get 'outrageous' and translates it into obnoxious. If I need to know about some reality star, I just memorize a name and throw it into one of those two categories.

So what brought all of this on? A copy of People Magazine that was left in the men's bathroom. Here are the things I'm supposed to know, believe in, care about, or understand in the year 2010:

* I'm supposed to know who Justin Bieber is. I do, he's in the Pre-Teen Phenom category. Oddly enough, I have not heard a single Justin Bieber song. I've not even heard one half-way through. Ditto for the Jonas Brothers. I have heard Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" but I've heard nothing else from her.

This goes to show I'm no longer in the coveted 18-39 demographic. Three of the most powerful acts in show business and I can only name one song.

* I'm supposed to care about what Snooki is wearing. I've had to learn who Snooki is, but she's one of those people that's so odious that you're actually ashamed to know her name. Then again, it's not Snooki's fault. With 500 channels in the 21st century as opposed to the three channels I grew up watching getting ratings is exponentially more difficult. MTV wanted eyeballs and they shoved the dumbest, most pig-ignorant people in front of us in hopes that people would watch. They did. In 1976, you wouldn't have needed a Snooki on TV to get people to watch; you could have gotten five times the rating of Jersey Shore with just about anything you'd care to show.

This is why I don't want MTV to remake Daria or create a sequel. God knows what they'd do to the cartoon to try to draw viewers.

* Kate Gosselin is on the cover - a woman whose only talent appears to be having a lot of children though the use of fertility drugs. She has ventured into both dancing and reporting on a light entertainment program; both efforts revealed her lack of talent. She's in a bikini with some spectacular new body below her neck, a body she claims she got without the help of surgery or a personal trainer - supposedly just a tummy tuck after surgery.

So who am I supposed to believe? This fame whore? Or twenty-five years of practical experience that tells me that celebrities - even minor ones - don't look the way they do without either

a) four hours a day with a personal trainer,
b) surgery ranging from dental work (usually veneers), face-lifts, Botox, and liposuction, or
c) winning the kind of genetic lottery that only a handful of people win. You need to see a picture of the celebrity as a child to figure that out. You could tell that Brooke Shields and Angelina Jolie were going to be future models even as children. Kate Gosselin, however? Not so much.

On the other hand, before you weep for humanity, I did learn two things that cheered me up:

* Arnold Schwarzenegger has a daughter. I didn't know he had any children. She seems to be perfectly well adjusted despite having a notoriously famous father, she says that she works out with her dad every day.

* Kelly Osbourne has lost a lot of weight. Rather than giving some complex explanation involving a Brazilian carbohydrate diet and fish oils, she said she exercised portion control and worked out a lot more. I mean, that's the secret of weight loss right there. What else is there? Such answers give me hope for humanity yet.

Drabble

* Yesterday, we left some ground beef in the sink to thaw out for dinner tonight. That same evening, my wife distinctly noticed that someone had been gnawing on the frozen beef. That someone was identified as Eartha, our color-point kitten.

This left us with two choices: we could either throw the beef out as unfit for human consumption, or not. Mind you, this is grass-fed, farmer's market beef. We made the painful decision to go ahead with our meal as planned, and to ignore the tiny bite mark. These are the decisions you make when you're an adult and food is expensive. Our meal has been cat-approved, at least.

* I was reading about becoming a Mason. "I nearly got in at Herndon!" At last, I learned a bit about that license plate I keep seeing - "to be one, ask one". This means that Masons are not allowed to solicit members, but you are quite allowed to seek out Masonic temples and simply ask to get in. The run-down Masonic temple around the corner appears to be quite crowded at times. My belt might not be high enough yet to apply for membership - when I'm old enough to be wearing it around my nipples might be the right time to apply.

* Jimmy Carter is sick in an Ohio hospital. He got sick on an airline flight from Atlanta to Cleveland. He's been there a couple of days now - in Cleveland that is, and not on the airline flight.

Carter should never have eaten those bags of airline chow. I'm sure that's what did it. No matter how bored you get, Mr. Carter, don't open that little silver bag. It's full of the airline chow that people left behind on previous flights.

* United States vs. Australia today in the FIBA World Cup. Game isn't over yet. What's the name of that 6'8" player from Australia? Cambage? She's about 19 years old, I think. In the American sports media, if she can't dunk the ball no one will care.

* If you talk about the stuff that you've written, is it self promotion? Given the present size of the story I'm writing, I'm thinking that I would have been much better off attempting a novel. I'd have the same outcome either way; no one would read it except for a handful of acquaintances. It keeps me from going crazier.

* If you don't shut up, voices in my head, I'll subject you to my painstakingly-written out timeline of the next 20 years.

* Thought exercise: think of your ten favorite rock bands. Then try to match up a song by another band that one of your favorite rock bands/singers could cover, and turn all of these songs into an album.

The Beatles: "Living Thing" by Electric Light Orchestra
The Ramones: "Multiply and Divide" by The Soviettes
Devo: "Simple Man" by Klaus Nomi
Kiss: "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin
David Bowie: "The Ballad of Maxwell Demon" from the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack
Kate Bush: "Pretty Good Year" by Tori Amos - I still think there is a better match elsewhere
Hole: still looking for a match

My problem: I only have seven favorite rock bands. It makes for a short album. I feel sorry for someone who has Lady Gaga as one of their Top Ten - Gaga is sort of in a class by herself right now. That won't last long. Every A&R man alive right now is trying to sign the Next Lady Gaga.

* Cycle of Fame in Five Acts

Act One: Who's Lady Gaga?
Act Two: Who was it who sang that song I heard yesterday on the radio? Oh yeah. I think it was "Lady Gaga".
Act Three: This movie has got to be a hit! We've got to have Lady Gaga do a song for it!
Act Four: This movie has got to be a hit! We've got to have a young version of Lady Gaga do a song for it!
Act Five: Who's Lady Gaga?

* Kathy Griffin is the new spokesperson for Kotex. I'm sure she's used Kotex in the past, but my understanding is that she's not using it now. (Change of life, as we call it.) I don't know if there's any similar predicament that a male celebrity would find himself in - promoting something that he might have used in the past but obviously using now. Maybe Patrick Stewart selling Grecian Formula - a hair dye.

* CINCGREEN's Rule of Bumper Stickers: The maximum amount of bumper stickers you are allowed to have on your car is two. Any more means that you have too much to say. Stay away from the person who has twelve bumper stickers on his or her car, all espousing the same political philosophy.

* Ruth has already figured out the plot of Machete Kills, the as-yet-unconfirmed sequel to Machete. Let's just say that someone is supposedly killed off-screen but we never actually see the body or the killing. There, I said it without really giving anything away.

* CINCGREEN's Quick Movie Review Formula: If all you have to look at is the commercial for a movie without reading the review, start with four stars, and subtract one star for each time something blows up in the commercial. The number of stars left over indicates how good the movie is. Some movies will end up with negative stars.

* I recently read that the person who edited all of Quentin Tarantino's movies just died at the age of 57. I guess we'll find out how important movie editors are with Tarantino's next movie.

* To Brother Grimace: I don't like coffee. But my wife does!

Antisocial Media

I read somewhere recently that Facebook has surpassed Google in terms of web hits, which is almost inexplicable. The only conclusion I can come to is that Farmville must be realllllly popular. I suspect most of Facebook's hit power comes from those ridiculous games and quizzes you're swamped with, which are a pestilence upon civilized discourse. Nothing can make you hate your actual friends faster.

The Brits have a great word: "pisstake". The ultimate pisstake on Facebook was the South Park episode "You Have 0 Friends". From what I can remember about the episode, everyone has Facebook and they keep telling Stan how great it is and finally, Stan gives in and signs up for a Facebook account.

As usual on South Park, things rapidly get worse from there. His parents want to friend him on Facebook and Stan - who has a life - has his father trying to "Friend" him and then his grandmother, and others, and before he knows it Stan is being harrassed by his own father wanting to know when he'll be getting around to friending his grandmother and avoid hurting her feelings. When Stan lists his status as "Single" on Facebook (he is a child, after all), his girlfriend Wendy is furious that Stan does not list himself as being in a committed relationship. Soon, everyone is up in his business and Stan's hatred of Facebook becomes well-justified.

There's a subplot - I forget how it goes - where there's some extremely lonely, friendless kid on Facebook who has zero friends, thus the title of the episode. Stan, in an act of mercy, decides to become this kid's sole Facebook friend. The kid builds this relationship into a lot more than it actually is, interpreting Stan's smileys and non-committal responses to the kid's Facebook posts as an actual conversation. Meanwhile, Stan finds his friend count on Facebook dropping and is warned by his real flesh friends that because the loner is listed on his friends page, it reflects negatively on his on-line popularity and that in order for Stan to boost his on-line popularity, he has to get more popular friends.

Unlike Stan Marsh, no one was forcing my hand in trying Facebook. Now that I'm on Facebook, I don't want to be. Once my family found out that I'm on Facebook, they insisted that I friend them. Funny, I thought that the whole point of having an on-line persona was so that you could have an on-line life completely separate from work. (Do you really want everything about yourself on-line broadcast to your immediate family? There's nothing to be ashamed of; I just need to avoid a bunch of awkward political and religious conversations.) Why would I post my daily happenings to my Facebook wall when people could just -you know - private message me on PPMB? Or e-mail? Or even better yet, call?

I would like to my Facebook profile completely - but this would lead my family asking me which social platform I'm now using, now that they're hit to the idea of social platforms. So the only point of having a Facebook profile is to serve as a "honey trap" - sort of as a platform rigged to "capture" my family while I go off and do something else. When some new app replaces Facebook - the same way Facebook replaced Myspace - I'll tell everyone I've jumped off to the new app and cancel my account with Facebook, which I've heard is a pretty slimy company. (BTW: do not put personal information on Facebook. Just don't.) Then I'll just ignore the new app.

In short, two lessons:

a) Facebook might not be the best way to reach me. Try email.
b) if I haven't friended you on Facebook, now you know why.

I also have a Twitter account, believe it or not, but none of it is devoted to on-line fandom. Primarily, it's for reading the short messages of famous people in the subculture I visit online. (Every now and then, they give up real news that I couldn't get anywhere else, unlike Facebook.) In terms of serving as a true network, it's just as lacking as Facebook is. The biggest disadvantage is that you're limited to 150 letters a Tweet. The biggest advantage is that it's geared to a pseudonym culture and it's not trying to get you to take a quiz every five minutes.

You might have guessed that my favorite form of social media is the blog. And the messageboard. And the ridiculously long essay. I'll have some quizzes and Farmville built in to Fortress CINCGREEN as soon I master the coding. But my version of Farmville will have locusts, moonshiners, tooth decay, incest and flash flooding that wipes out a year's crop.

To the Barricades

Malcolm Gladwell has a new article out in New Yorker called "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will not be Tweeted". He examines Iran's "Twitter Revolution" and writes about why it was doomed to failure. The argument he makes is a simple one: people are motivated to make big changes and take big risks when a movement is a "strong tie" movement - when your friends or your family are in the movement. He uses as his example the desegregation sit-ins in the 1960s and writes that the group of black kids who first demanded service at a Southern diner that didn't serves blacks all had strong-group ties to each other - two pairs of best friends with three of them I believe going to the same high school. All of them were socially accountable to each other. "Come on, man, it's time to put up or shut up. You aren't going to chicken out, are you?"

Whereas with Twitter and Facebook, the acquaintanceships formed there are "weak tie" relationships. "Weak tie" relationships aren't by definition worse that "strong tie" ones - indeed, the power of casual acquaintanceship is truly astonishing and can do many things that strong-tie relationships can't. The problem is that you can only get so much out of casual acquaintanceship. Iranians aren't going to risk their lives at the barricades because you changed your avatar to a Twitter ribbon. Oh, on a message board you can get all sorts of useful advice that you could never get anywhere else, and have access to information far beyond any your strong-tie friends and family could provide - but the important thing to remember is that the advice you get is free advice which doesn't inconvenience the person giving it. If you were going to ask someone on PPMB to loan you $5000, you might get a different answer. That's the kind of thing you can only ask a friend or family member - with whom you have a "strong tie" relationship - to do.

Another point Gladwell makes is that with strong-tie relationships centralized authority starts to form. If four friends decide to do something, there's going to be a division of labor after a time. More than likely, one of these friends will become the unofficial leader. Now, try the same thing with 400 message board posters. All of them are acquaintances as best, with no strong ties and in some cases, no emotional investment. This is why forming organizations of any kind over the internet is very difficult.

All of the above appears to apply to what I've seen happen on message boards since the beginning of the internet age. For example, there's a big difference between people who I've met in person and people I've only met "on the internet" so to speak. With people you've met in person, you feel like you know them even though you really might not - I always have particular fondness for people I've met in person. Whereas with people I've never met in person, I can know tons of things about their lives and yet come away with the impression that I don't know them at all. The tie that's formed with actually meeting someone in person - even if it's a weak one - appears to top anything I've experienced on a message board. The pattern seems to go:

Message board/chat room
Private message/e-mail
Phone call
In-person meeting

As one goes down the list, the tie that's formed becomes more and more strong. I think that most internet message board disputes could be solved by an in-person meeting; most people wouldn't have the balls to say the obnoxious shit they say on the internet to someone's actual face. (Many of those who would say such things to someone might be the kind of people so sociopathic that they couldn't function in society - they call it having 'no impulse control'. These hair-triggers generally can't hold a job and are the epitome of the insult that they 'live in their mother's basement' since they couldn't function in the outside world well enough to do what it took to move away from home.)

There is also something to be said for strong organizational power. I think the reason the PPMB has stayed alive so long is that it has a form of strong moderation - people who show up strictly to cause trouble can be controlled or banned. With weak moderation, such social shunning depends on several people who would otherwise be acquaintances to act in unison; a nearly impossible act over the internet. People who don't like such moderation are free to congregate elsewhere although history has shown that they have never congregated in large groups - or when they have, the congregation could simply not maintain itself for very long.

This leads to talking about one of my favorite subjects: one of the laws of internet trolling. Draw two axes. Let the x-axis be the number of people in any on-line community. Let the y-axis be a function of x - namely, the probability that a group of size x could be successfully trolled for long periods of time.

The resulting graph is a bell-curve: groups of medium size are the ones most successfully trolled. For small groups, the ten guys who get together to talk about collecting stainless steel three-bladed boat propellers can get together in private chat and unanimously agree to ban some trollish newcomer. For large groups, the 1,000 people who meet every day to talk about the New York Yankees are just too big to troll - there would be far too many active threads in such a board to strike and moderators could the troll when caught with only a handful of the other 999 noticing or even caring. (Most would be calling for the troll's head; it's unlikely that one person's contributions would impact a group of that size significantly.)

All of this has to do with the power of weak vs.strong ties. All message boards are weak-tie groups. The small board's ties are weak, but small groups are more likely to come to a consensus even if they are only acquaintances. The large board's ties are also weak, but at some point in its history the group must have been able to develop moderators and a method of dispute resolution and punishment - or it never would have lived long enough to become a large board. It's the middle group, with weak ties and no consensus that is in the most danger. A troll might be able to pull together enough sympathizers to survive, which could never happen in a large group.

My question then is: did Daria fandom manage to solve its message board problems because the size of the fandom grew, or did it solve them because it shrank? And has Daria fandom truly escaped the dangerous middle ground?

Screwed the Pooch

Well, my hope of writing one post per 24-hour day is over - I forgot to write today's (yesterday's) post. I'm hoping to at least hit the "one post per every waking day" goal.

We just finished hosting a young couple here for the weekend. This is the daughter of one of Ruth's friends and her fiance. She is a first-generation Cuban and he's a Peruvian of Japanese descent. They're going to get married some time in November, and we'll go to that wedding. It was great to see them; by all appearances they seem quite happy with each other.

We went out to see Machete again. Hey, it's a movie they had not seen and one we didn't mind seeing again. Robert Rodriguez should be thanking me because I'm helping promote his movie.

I haven't heard from The Angst Guy in a long time. I hope that either he's okay, or that he's just GAFIAted. I'd hate for something really bad to have happened to him.

Nine

I am watching Nine by Daniel Day-Lewis. I honestly don't know why I'm watching it. We have some visitors, everyone wanted to see a movie off pay-per-view, and I was pretty much outvoted. The choice was either to be Captain Buzzkill and veto everything that everyone else suggested or to finally agree to watch something. This appears to be least offensive - a musical which appears to be based on the life of Frederico Fellini.

But it's not compelling.

Company over right now. Very nice people who came to town for a wedding. Other than sitting through Nine, good times, good times.

Ted Bundy, MVP

I just learned that Michael Vick will be starting for the Philadelphia Eagles. I'm sure that for any Eagles fan that likes animals for any reason other than cooking, it must be an uncomfortable moment. What do you do if he has a good game? Light applause? A simple acknowledgment of his good game and then rapidly moving to talking about some other player on the Eagles that had nearly as many great moments that same game?

Part of the problem is that we idolize players who have athetlic talent. Rather than concluding that they're good at football if nothing else, we conclude the opposite - that they're just better people and it's their inherent moral worth that makes them good at poster. The narrative goes that they practice harder, want it more, have greater will power and just have more heart than you or I and it ignores any contributions that genetics, instruction, opportunity or flat-out luck might have played.

When people found out that Michael Vick was busy participating in the execution of dogs in his dog fighting ring, people jumped all over themselves in various hyperbolic attempts to exculpate Vick. Just about every excuse in the sports yearbook was pulled out - he didn't know what was going on, it wasn't him what did it, clearly there were other players somewhere in the NFL doing something worse, he was being harassed for being successful and black, dog fighting is a cultural thing where Vick comes from. That might have fooled a few people, but sports fans found out that dog lovers are just as motivated as drunk guys wearing paint on their bare chests and Vick got sent to prison.

Vick has done his time. He's clear of any legal penalties, but as the owner of pets, there's nothing good about the guy. So how do you root for someone like that? Maybe we should ask San Francisco Giants fans about Bonds.

You know what Ted Bundy's biggest problem was? He couldn't throw a football in a perfect spiral for sixty yards. If he could, people would have been naming their kids after him.

Review: "The Good Daria" by genolover

Every now and then, you read fan fiction that really makes you think, even if it only makes you think of an episode of Family Guy. In the episode "A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas" evil genius baby decides to be good in the hopes of scoring some sweet, sweet plutonium from Santa Claus. Likewise, the protagonist of our universe makes a decision to be "good - whatever that means" in The Good Daria.

Therefore, Daria strives for goodness in this story that edges precariously into alternate universe territory. One is never quite sure whether or not this is an alternate universe, as Daria's efforts at moral goodness have far-reaching results...we think. We never quite see the results, but the scenes are described in such crisp, illustrative prose that you can't help but think yes, all of these characters were changed, even Daria and Jane.

The springboard comes from a reading of Machiavelli's The Prince, particularly Machiavelli's statement that a prince cannot be a good man and a good ruler at the same time. Jane makes a comment that Daria is a "Princess", but Daria is disturbed by Jane's evaluation - she sees herself as being a good person and disdaining the conceit that she could "rule" anything. Jane, on the contrary, sees Daria differently:

You've gotten past all of this wishy-washy crap. You see stuff, you size it up and you take advantage of it. Nothing escapes the old Daria laser beam. There's nothing good about either of us...and that's the way I like it. We're criminales.

Daria takes offense, but Jane counters that Daria could never be good and stay Daria. "You couldn't go fifteen minutes without putting someone or something down." Therefore, Daria bets Jane that she can be morally good and still keep her essential self. Daria jokes that she will be "chaotic good and not lawful good" but finds herself in a quick moral thicket.

In her first attempt at being good, Daria decides to knock off the sarcasm. This not only renders her silent - there's a great scene when Jane throws her softball premises in conversation that beg to be punctured by sarcasm and Daria must remain mute - but Jane claims that when Daria shuts up, Daria is no longer Daria anymore. Daria wins the first round by delivering helpful criticism with her sarcasm heavily camouflaged, but even though Jane is satisfied...Daria isn't. She sees herself as cheating, winning on a technicality. "I'm calling myself good when I'm really just cheating," and Daria begins a soul searching where she really tries to be good and helpful.

Daria's stab at goodness has consequences. Quinn takes advantage of Daria's goodness, as Quinn understands Daria better than anyone else besides Jane and Helen. Whenever Daria gives an inch, Quinn is right there to take five miles and Daria's home life becomes miserable. However, her random acts of kindness have unexpected effects on Jodie, who

...was stuck with petty hypocricy from her father, her mother, Ms. Li, congressment, her tennis coach and just about everyone. Every day she found it easier and easier to go along to get along. Jodie hungered for moral goodness.

And with that, Jodie begins to confide in Daria (sometimes intrusively). Daria becomes Jodie's sounding board as Jodie pours out her woes, and Daria feels that listening to Jodie "fills her daily goodness requirement". Even so, listening to Jodie moan about everything in her life quickly becomes tedious for Daria. Daria seeks peace in the Beautitudes of Christ - even though Daria calls herself an agnostic, Daria feels that "Christ should have a chance to be as wrong as the next guy" and Daria makes an attempt to strengthen her goodness from the Corporal Works of Mercy:

Feed the hungry
Give drink to the thirsty
Clothe the naked
Shelter the homeless
Comfort the imprisoned
Visit the sick
Bury the dead

The next chapters recount Daria's humorous failures. Daria nearly burns down the kitchen in her attempts to feed the hungry, and her visit to a triathalon to give drink to the thirsty finds Daria disgusted when the runners either take one drink and throw away Daria's water or drench themselves in it. No one wants any of Daria's clothes, and her attempt to shelter a (theoretically) homeless squirrel brings Jake on the warpath. Daria's visit to Sandi when she's grounded leads to a rant from Sandi on Daria tying to spy on Quinn. Brittany inadvertently gives Daria her cold, and it looks like Daria is going to go 0-for-6.

It is when burying the miserable homeless squirrel ("Peanut butter ice cream tonight!" Jake cries in celebration) that Daria has her epiphany. To be good is, in many respects, to suffer. It requires spiritual fortitude, and Daria concludes.

I was not too cool to be good. I was not too cynical for goodness. I was not not good because I was too much of a rebel. The simple fact is that being good was just too god-damned difficult and inconvenient. It wasn't that I didn't want to be good; it was that being good was too hard. I wasn't too hard - I was too sensitive.

In the end, Daria can only conclude to "try harder next time". Daria gives up her quest for goodness and decides to swing at "the low-hanging fruit of goodness". Daria gets to keep her laziness and cynicism...but also, becomes a better person. (Quinn also gets her comeuppance.)

A guy named Stanislaw Lem turned me on to this tale. Unfortunately, I deleted this story and all I have are the quotes. I can't seem to find it anywhere on the web. If you see a copy of this story turn up, please send it to Fortress CINCGREEN, up in the High Castle.

Beat the Deadline

HaH!

Help?

OverlordMikey at the PPMB posts this thread about how depressed he is and how he needs to get his mind off his depression.

As someone who is a depression sufferer, the best advice I can give you is simply not to follow the news, either on television, radio, or the internet. I stopped following the news and reading political blogs and now I feel about ten times better. Trust me, political thought is so polarized and so filtered you will not feel better after hearing any kind of news, even if it's the kind of news that benefits your party. (All you'll be thinking is "it sure took them long enough"!)

As for writing skills: the only way to really get better at writing is to write. And the best place to write is probably in writing fanfiction. Fans are generally supportive and willing to help you out. The only danger is that any critique applied by fans will range from laudatory to extremely laudatory. If you find yourself too satisfied with your writing - you ain't doing it right. On the other hand, you can't just perfect and perfect and perfect a story forever - at some point you just have to say, "fuck it" and throw it out there to swim or sink on its own.

If OverlordMikey snores, I would suggest a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine. That machine changed my life. I stopped taking the depression medication and haven't needed it since. (Drug free for about three years now.) There's no guarantee that I won't need it again some day but for now, I'm all right. Long term oxygen deprivation makes your brain do strange things. A CPAP machine gives you the air that you need, but unless you have good insurance to pay for the testing it will be very hard to pay for out-of-pocket. (Insert rant here.)

Raskolnikov had good advice with Frank Capra movies. Comedies in general are also a good idea.

Oh yes - and if you feel that you're going to hurt yourself or hurt other people, seek help right away.

Almost Forgot

Almost forgot the post-a-day challenge to myself. Just made it under the wire before I went to bed.

My thoughts: how hard it must be to build your entire life around a profession and then be told that you're no longer good enough. It happens to basketball players a lot. Not a profound thought, but it fills up space.

The First Iron Law of Sports

"I can't believe how much time I had wasted watching any old piece of shit ballgame that happened to show up on TV. I must have thought there was some inborn male obligation to tune in and root every time a bunch of sweaty assholes got together to mix it up in a stadium somewhere."

-George Carlin


As a follower of a particular sport, I used to take offense to any claim that the sport I followed was boring. I used to build up arguments in my head explaining to myself (and to others) why sport X, far from boring, was actually the epitome of how a sport should be played. Most of the arguments went along the lines of "you just don't respect the intricacies of Sport X". And beside, the favorite sports of all the naysayers are boring as well.

Do you disbelieve me? What about American football? The NFL? The Most Exciting Sport Ever? We'll let internet dumbasses be the judge.

"American Football takes on average about 3 hours to complete and has about 12 minutes of actual ball in play action (The average NFL game contains about 120 actual plays, which take an average of six seconds each. That's 720 seconds of play, or 12 minutes). That means that only 5% of the game is action and 95% of the game is the borefest of standing around, scratching and slapping butts, getting off and on the field and endless commercials for Viagra and Cialis. You spend 5 seconds watching action by which I mean fat guys in pads and Lycra tights pushing each other, then minutes of complete boredom followed after.

The only people who would even dream of objecting to this interpretation of this most boring of sports are Americans, the same way only the Japanese will object to the notion of Sumo Wrestling being boring. But whether its American football or Sumo wrestling, they are both played by fatasses and both are incredibly boring and look incredibly gay, hence will never become popular outside their nations of origin. Its plain and simple and the whole world agrees on it, American football is boring, tedious and a ***** version of rugby."

"Well, the whole world has already agreed that American football is BORING BORING BORING BORING. Now I know that Americans are emotionally attached to the game just like with baseball, but still….the game is BORING BORING BORING. When you spend 95% of the time watching NO ACTION, the game is BORING. PERIOD. That’s why no one outside America watches American football."

Okay? Then how about basketball? Throwing down killer dunks? In your face play? That's gotta be exciting....

"all these dunks are the same. basketball is boring. they trade baskets until the last few minutes. then they call time outs few sections. also, to stop the clock they intentionally foul on every play. Boring. this is the only sport that intentionally fouls to gain an advantage. this sport is very hard watch."

"I personally find watching points being scored all the time boring, as single events are rarely game-changing and there is rarely any tension and suspense involved in my opinion. "

"The NBA's problem is that the underlying mathematics of the league are screwed up. In every sport, there is an element of predetermination and an element of randomness in the outcomes. Who will win the championship next year is not entirely a crapshoot. We know that Kentucky has a better chance of winning the NCAA basketball title than Nebraska does - next year, or in 2019. If we knew with certainty who was going to win the title next year, then we could say that the championship was 100 percent predetermined, 0 percent random.

In the NBA, the element of predetermination is simply too high. Simply stated, the best team wins too often. If the best team always wins, then the sequence of events leading to victory is meaningless. Who fights for the rebound, who sacrifices his body to keep the ball from rolling out of bounds doesn't matter. The greater team is going to come out on top anyway."

Okay. Baseball. America's Sport, played in Green Cathedrals. No one could have an issue with baseball, could they?

"Again, haven't these guys been playing baseball their whole lives? Then they come up to the plate in the championship series and take 38 practice swings? Isn't that was practice is for?"

"Many years ago, a writer -- I think it was Brock Yates -- defined baseball along these lines: Two guys stand 60 feet apart and throw a ball back and forth. Every once in a while, a third guy sticks a piece of wood in the way. A fourth guy sits behind a microphone and says things such as, "We've got a barn-burner going here!""

"162 games, are you kidding me? Some might argue that these players actually work for their money, but come on. They aren’t working too hard in the dugout, waiting to wait for their pitch. Baseball season is too long. Whether you are a fan or not, you can’t truthfully tell me that you are interested in every single game. Games 40 – 120 are an absolute bore to me. Nothing really matters until the final twenty games of the season. The season needs to be cut down drastically."

So which sports have a right to call other sports boring? There are two schools of thought. One school is that there is one religion that has the truth. The other school is that all religions have the truth. Therefore, we conclude with CINCGREEN's First Iron Law of Sports.

All sports are boring.

The corollary to the First Iron Law of Sports: All sports are boring, but my sport is not.

Remember this the next time you're in a tedious internet argument. The great thing about the First Iron Law is that it is universally applicable.

Do you not like sports? This is because all sports are boring.
Do you like a sport better than some other sports? This is because all sports are boring, but my sport is not.

Ta-da. If there's a Second Iron Law of Sports, I'll let you know.

Machete

Ruth and I just left Machete. If you've not seen it, I highly recommend it. Despite the copious amounts of violence and nudity, trust me: you will have fun. You might have to lower your suspension of disbelief, but you'll find it was well worth the effort.

My understanding is that Machete was originally a fake trailer for the movie Grindhouse. If that's the case, then Machete is a movie fully fleshed out from the initial concept yet still faithful to its grindhouse origins. What is there to say? Aside from the beautifully ugly Danny Trejo playing the main character, it's a virtual all-star cast.

Lindsay Lohan, in between rehab starts, has a nice role. I was surprised that she went nude, but as Ruth said her career might have regressed to the place where she can only get parts if she drops her drawers. Cheech Marin plays a kick-ass priest, Jessica Alba plays the immigration agent with a heart of gold, Don Johnson is a murderous border vigilante in mirrorshades, Steven Seagal is the doughy bad guy and Robert De Niro is a proto-Tea Party Texan. All of them spend the entire film chewing scenery and if you get tired of the wit and sheer gall of the script, there are lots of explosions and of course, several machete murders which could only have been plausible if the main character had the strength of Bigfoot. (Like I said, please suspend disbelief - this is NOT a documentary on illegal immigration issues.)

The plot - well, is that really necessary. All you need to know is Machete Was Done Wrong - he's done wrong multiple times in fact - and that gets us off to a running start because he is not the kind of guy you want to do wrong. After several improbable escapes from near certain death, we find out that Machete has a lot of friends in the immigrant community. He'll need all of those friends to get his sweet, sweet glorious revenge and I don't think I'm giving much away to say that he gets it.

Actually, for all of the over-the-top humor I was surprised at how political this film was. Seagal's drug lord is in cahoots with corrupt politican De Niro - if drug lords contribute money to politicians to keep the product illegal in the United States and the prices high, they would also contribute to those same politicians to tighten the faucet on illegal immigration so that the price can be made a little bit higher all around. The conceit is that not only can America not do without illegal immigration - as one bad guy says, illegal immigration keeps the price of labor down and is the best thing to happen to Texas business. Furthermore, we've given immigrants high amounts of access to our society, and as was proven in the wave of Eastern European immigration at the beginning of the 20th century these illegals understand us better than you think they might. They might not speak the language, but they ain't stupid.

A lot of immigrants get treated badly in this film, and Machete is sort of the stand-in for all of them. The movie is not true Mexploitation, but if you go up his family tree on the American side I'm sure you'll find guys named Shaft and Sweetback. Machete is their close kin, at least in spirit. Machete is bad ass and despite his looks, he's got something (zzzzziipppp!) for the ladies, too. The audience during the showing we saw tonight had a lot of Hispanics in the audience, and I suspect they had a really good time. I suspect that if Sarah Palin saw this film, her head asplode.

The end promises us two sequels, Machete Kills and Machete Kills Again in true grindhouse fashion. If they're as half as good as Machete I'm there, dude.

Cavalcade of Events

Dream lost last night by three points. Wrote an article and got about five hours of sleep.

Long day of work.

Long day after work.

Barely conscious. For a blog that promised a post every day, it sure ain't paying off for the readers.

Brief Post

...a brief post, as I'm at Philips Arena waiting for Atlanta Dream/Seattle Storm to start. All I can write is "boy, it sure is cold in Philips Arena when it's empty".

The Diet of Worms

While driving to work today, I thought about the connotations of the word "diet".

If you didn't know this, I am a member of Weight Watchers. (Well, for a few weeks of time anyway.) Since February of this year, I have gone from fat to somewhat less fat. My weight loss over this period of time - 44 pounds.

One of the things you learn in Weight Watchers is never to use the word "diet". The reason is that diets don't work. You're either "in Weight Watchers" or "intelligent eating" or on a "plan" or some other euphemism. The idea is that "diet" has a connotation of either a) eating things you'd rather not eat (like green beans) or b) not eating things you'd rather eat (like a bacon double cheeseburger).

This dooms dieters in two ways. First, they always feel deprived and their worst enemy is...themselves. They see all that food that they could be eating and are not eating it, or are guilty for not liking food they should be eating. Second, other people attempt to undermine someone who is on a diet. "Hey, one fudge sundae won't kill you!" The problem is that that one fudge sundae usually leads to a following one.

So what is the actual definition of diet?

a : food and drink regularly provided or consumed

b : habitual nourishment

c : the kind and amount of food prescribed for a person or animal for a special reason

d : a regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one's weight

It's the sparingly in definition d that is the problem.

Could some sort of synonym be employed? Let's look at the standard synonyms:

fast: The problem is that fast implies abstinence - that you're not eating or drinking anything at all, or that if you are you're taking in food and liquid at minimal levels. So fast doesn't work as a synonym.

nutritional therapy: This doesn't work either. This term implies that the subject is lacking in some sort of essential vitamins or nutrients and also implies that either a doctor or a nutritionist is implementing the therapy. All in all, this term implies scientific supervision.

regime: This word implies some system of control. The problems here are that it usually implies external control (like, say, the Sex Pistols and their "fascist regime") and is rather non-specific about what kind of control. Something's going on, but we don't really know what it is.

regimen: This is pretty much a synonym of regime. Regimen is sometimes used to emphasize that the control is gradual.

restriction: This indicates that bounds have been put on something, namely, that there is an actor and something acted upon. Can one restrict oneself? Possibly.

starvation: Starvation implies that you want to eat but are lacking food. Furthermore, it emphasizes suffering and discomfort. A teenage kid who cries "I'm starving!" means something different than when he says, "I'm on a diet!"

weight-reduction plan: This is probably the best synonym, at least for someone in Weight Watchers. Most attendees want to reduce their weight for cosmetic or health reasons. The "plan" is just that, a set of instructions one can follow to achieve one's goal. It lacks the negative connotations of "diet". The problem is that the synonym is far too bulky. It's like calling a television a dynamic image receiver.

So will any of these synonyms work? Maybe one. "Plan". Or better, "food plan". "Sorry, but I can't eat that sundae, I'm on a food plan." If someone asks why, you can mention the weight reduction. And if anyone asks again, you can sing "You are holding out your hand/You want to know the simple things in my simple plan...."




(The above was inspired by S. I. Hayakawa's "Use the Right Word".)

Les Sabots

I was talking to someone upstairs at work today, in the search for diet soda. Right now, my work uniform is a decent looking short-sleeved shirt, a pair of khaki shorts and a pair of flip flops. My biggest concern is that sooner or later the winter moratorium on short pants will be declared and I'll be consigned to long pants before the weather forces me to.

As I waited, this other person - similarly dressed except for the flip-flops - pointed out what he thought was my faux pas. "Last year, I wore flip-flops to work and they sent me home and told me to get another pair of shoes."

This has never happened to me for what I suspect are a number of reasons. The call center is the part of the business that is located upstairs, which is where the non-salaried employees work. Having worked in something like a call center before, I suspect that life upstairs really sucks. You're on the phone X number of hours a day, the bosses monitor both your time and your calls, your breaks are strictly regulated and you're made to feel small and insignificant in a number of petty and mindless ways.

Think about it this way. Imagine an economist at the University of Chicago having to check in with his department chair before he can go to the bathroom.

And yet, here I am, flouting the dress code and getting away scott-free. There could be many reasons for this:

1) No one knows enough about me to really care what I'm wearing. I'm the man with the red stapler.
2) I'm so vitally important that I can get away with various violations of the rules with a wink-and-a-nod because I'm so necessary, or....
3) ...I'm a salaried employee. Who works downstairs, with the bosses. Who only has one direct supervisor, who is off-site. And the flip-flops rule - either de jure or de facto in its enforcement - is a way to make one group of employees feel one way about themselves and the other group of employees feel another way about themselves.

So, given the choice, do you flout your comfortable flip-flops or seek other adornment? Can't throw the flip-flops away. Too pricey. If you stop wearing them, your wife asks "Why aren't you wearing those flip-flops? You like them so much!" More likely, you take the coward's way out, continue to contribute to class inequity by wearing the flip-flops of oppression and resolve to wear closed-toed shoes next summer.

HHF 59 is done, BTW. Actually, everything up to HHF 63 is first-drafted. (waves)

SEA 75 ATL 69 4:36 4th Q.

This barely meets the deadline. Possibly more after the game.

Babies

Up much earlier than I'd normally be, so I'm getting a post in. To which you might ask, "but doesn't this violate the spirit of your one-post-a-day rule"? And to which I would respond, "bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!"

By the way, the cats are also up. Each cat is five months old. Like any teenager, they're basically insane. Which is why I don't believe I could ever be a parent - my grumpy nature is kept in check by a number of methods; the stress of infants/kids/teens would bring out the full grump.

Trade-Offs

Here's a problem. Assume that the place you work has an IT department. In order to get certain information from IT, you have to request it. This process can take a long time. Let's also assume that you feel fairly confident in your ability to handle and organize information. IT, frankly, would like to give you access to its inner workings so that instead of you coming around and pestering them every two weeks for something big, you would simply create it yourself.

Question: Do you take the access that IT gives you?

Answer: It depends. If IT is offering you access so that you could do the hours of work that they used to do on your behalf, then no, you reject it. The entire purpose of having an IT department is so that you don't have to do that crap yourself. The purpose of a business being split up into different departments is so that odious tasks can be distributed appropriately to specialists. If IT isn't going to volunteer to take crap of your desk, why should you volunteer to take crap off theirs?

However, if what you're asking for is the kind of stuff that you could probably put together in 15 minutes - but stuff IT doesn't want to give you because it doesn't want every Tom, Dick and Harry poking around in its databases - then, yes, you do want the access that IT gives you. You don't want to have to wait for IT to get around to doing a simple task on their clock instead of your clock. If it's just a case of IT not wanting to give you the widget you need out of some sense of territorial tresspass, then yes, you do want that access.

This is the kind of trade-off I have to deal with every now and then. Out of everyone who works in this building, I have more access to IT stuff than anyone else does. And so far, I've been able to make it work.

(* * *)

There are two things that are taking up my creative time.

First: Hallowed Halls of Fielding. If I told you how many parts I've planned for this story - and yes, that number of parts does not equal infinity - you'd shit a brick. This work is going to be novel length. So why am I writing it when I could be writing an actual novel? Madness and boredom, mostly.

Second: A timeline of future events that I might use as a sort of pre-written alternate future history. Do you have a story set in 2025 but don't want to have to generate the technological changes that correspond to 15 years from now? No problem, baby. I've got it all under of control. Only up to about 2019 so far.

Dagger

...the water line is repaired. The problem? The water line from the city attaches to our plastic line underground. The connection between the two began wearing away over time and finally came completely loose. The plumbers were excellent. They fixed the line with minimal damage to our lawn and even helped us with an undiagnosed water pressure problem.

In other news, the Seattle Storm beats the Atlanta Dream 79-77 in Game One of the WNBA Finals. Sue Bird hits the jumper with 2.6 seconds left on the final Seattle offensive play. Angel McCoughtry tries to come back on the other end, but she can't shoot over four Storm players. Next game on Tuesday night.

Exciting game. Storm remain 20-0 this season at Key Arena. It helps the league, but it doesn't help the Dream.

Fuel Leak

...well, not a fuel leak. A water leak.

Here's the story this fine Sunday morning. We have no water. Over the last couple of months, we've noticed that we've had this exorbitantly high water bill. Figuring that this was due to summer water usage, we paid the first one. Having reduced our water usage and getting the same results, we paid the second one - but we suspected a leak somewhere in the line. This Wednesday the city was going to come out and perform a leak detection. They would send air into the line and using their tricorder or whatever, would determine the location of the leak. It would be up to us to actually repair it, but the city would give us a discounted bill.

So according to my wife, this morning we have no water at all. She called the city first, and they began a cursory inspection, finding the leak immediately - near an old maple tree. "But," you might ask, "don't they need their roto-rooters and plungers to do that?"

Apparently not. They confirmed the leak by visual inspection. It was that bad.

So now, we have one of Atlanta's fine plumbers to come out here and look at the leak and hopefully, repair it. Ruth did all of this while I was asleep, as I generally sleep until 10 am. Wow.

We've not had good luck with plumbers. There was one plumber we used to use a lot - if you knew how old this house was, you'd be surprised - but he seemed half in-the-can and when repairing our sewer line dug up the entire front yard to do it. Once we got the bill, I told Ruth I didn't want to use that guy again.

That is why, this morning, I'm waiting for random chance to deliver us a plumber. Oh, yes, and I'm hungry. And I've started Weight Watchers again and am re-disciplining myself. I lost 44 pounds and have...oh, about 44 pounds to go before I get to George Clooney handsome. Selah. So what I want to do is springboard this water disaster into a chance to go out to eat. Which I shouldn't be doing - a bowl of cereal makes a fine breakfast - but I want to go out. Get it?

Incidentally, this evening the Atlanta Dream will be playing the Seattle Storm in Game One of the WNBA Finals. I've planned my entire day around that game because I'm a huge Atlanta Dream fan. The game is on ABC at 3 pm where it will be undoubtedly buried under the start of the NFL's regular season. Whereas Atlanta drives to Pittsburgh to meet the Steelers at Heinz Field, San Francisco flies to Seattle to take on the mighty Seahawks. For most Seattleites, the Storm/Dream game will be the second-most important sporting event taking place in their city that day.

What did someone say about success? "I don't know the secret of success, but I know the secret of failure: trying to please everybody." The WNBA, in their attempt to please both the NBA and women's college basketball by not competing directly with either organization - and possibly earning their ire - finds its season wedged in the summer months like a foot wedged in a shoe two sizes too small. After five months of walking, one of the straps breaks and Game One of the WNBA finals is on ABC for the only time this year going up head-to-head against football. I believe this is the only time that a WNBA game will be shown on ABC this year. I don't know whether to applaud or to boo.

This Blog Will Be Updated Every Day

...until I stop updating it.

Back in the day, I was a member of a PBeM (play-by-e-mail) group and I set myself a challenge - that I would attempt to make a post once a day. Some of the posts were very good, but there were some days when I could only post a couple of paragraphs. No matter. I managed to post every single day for 31 days.

I'm going to set myself the goal of posting every single day. There are some days where this might not be possible - vacations, emergencies and the like. But I'll post every single day even though some posts might not be much bigger than a grocery receipt. As Adam Cadre said, the reason he kept a diary was to make sure that he was not merely experiencing events, but thinking about them. This might not be a valid theory, but I'll give it a go.