WWJB? - First in a Series

I am having one of those days where my mind in jumping from item to item and I can not seem to form a coherent thought. This means I have had a couple of stupid-crazy ideas so far today, one of them being compiling a list of things I would buy if I won the lottery. Of course I can't concentrate on this list long enough to make it past the first few items but it occurs to me that this list might be fun to keep therefore I am going to do this list as a series of totally random posts on the Opiate entitled WWJB? or "What Would James Buy?"

Now I would like to present #1 on the WWJB list: A Godzilla Suit.

Why? Because nothing says excess like taking care of mundane chores dressed as Godzilla. Plus I would be about 1/3rd of the way towards hosting my Godzilla-theme party where the attendees have the opportunity to dress as Godzilla and destroy parts of Tokyo.

Random Thought - 2-27-08

In order for this to be funny you need to know that today was Go Texan Day around the office since the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which will be the bane of my commuting existence for the next month, is about to get underway. Thus some people around the office were dressed a little more cowboy than usual.

Earlier today as I was talking with a coworker I heard the distinct sound of slapping coming from one of the lawyers offices and the first thought that went through my mind was, "Man, I did not know that the release of Brokeback Mountain changed the meaning of 'cowboy up' to THAT."

Some days my head hurts me in ways only therapy might be able to heal.

Thoughts RE: Twitter

Despite being a geek and loving technology, I tend to be a late adopter when it comes to new technology. I did not own a cellphone until late in 2005 and, despite having owned two of them now, have yet to actually purchase a Blackberry. I did not purchase an iPod until late in 2006. I was not on MySpace until a "friend" created an account for me alleging I was a 16-year-old gay boy from Alaska. Both of my laptops and both of my desktops have been, like both of my Blackberrys, hand-me-downs from friends or, even better, friend's companies.

I think this is largely driven by the fact that I rarely see the utility of all these wonderful toys that people keep releasing unleashing on the public. Another factor that drives this is that I like my technology to work the way it is meant to work and, as intelligent early adopters know, there are going to be kinks which need to be worked out with any bit of tech. Then there is the whole price penalty for being an early adopter and, deep down inside, I am a cheap bastard. But to be honest this has wandered away from the point a bit, which is my somewhat random thoughts on Twitter as I give in and sign up for an account.

I am not certain when Twitter first popped up on my radar. I think it was when one of my coworkers proposed that our team use this to give each other updates on where we were. Since we all have offices within about 200 feet of each other this idea was quickly shelved. (Of course the coworker in question is pretty much the LINUX guy from this TrueNuff Mac commercial spoof and feels the need to incorporate WAY too much tech into our processes. We call him The Complicator.) As Twitter has further penetrated the geek culture to which I pay some modicum of attention it has continued to pop up on my radar intermittently until last month (or maybe it was December) when it finally came up at the office in a legitimate context.

Now in order to answer some of the questions regarding Twitter that came up in this discussion at the office, I find myself creating an account. I was poking around the site when I came across this:

With Twitter, you can stay hyper-connected to your friends and always know what they're doing...Twitter puts you in control and becomes a modern antidote to information overload.

Wait, what? The VERY same product that allows me to stay "hyper-connected" is also a "modern antidote to information overload?" Is it just me or do those two things seem to be EXACT OPPOSITES and, at least to my small mind, mutually exclusive.

Oh well, you can follow me by searching for my name, with initial, or you can view my tweets via http://twitter.com/funkywoodjam.

I think.

Things I Learned Today

1. There is a picture of Michael Phelps taking a hit from a bong floating around.
2. In response to this picture Kellogg has canceled his contract as a spokesfish.
3. People, presumably of the stoner bent, are trying to organize a boycott of Kellogg.
4. Kellogg manufactures something named Screaming Fruit Winders for the UK market.
5. Kellogg USED to manufacture a cereal named Puffa Puffa Rice.

My thoughts on this new knowledge:

1. WTF did you think a swimmers drug of choice would be? PCP?
2. Couldn't care less.
3. Like that crowd can organize anything for more than 10 minutes. I bet this boycott doesn't last past, oh I dunno, 5:30 pm. Right about when the munchies hit.
4. I don't care what a Screaming Fruit Winder actually is, it sounds F-I-L-T-H-Y; like Sheboygan Side-by-Side filthy.
5. Kellogg ought to bring back this cereal and have Michael Phelps be the spokesmerman for that line.



Or they could change the name to Puffa Puffa Pass cereal.

That's gold Jerry.

Hawaiian gold!

STFU Files: Joe the Plumber

Okay would someone please let Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher know that in this economy fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes? I know we have seven billion stations on the air which need to fill 24 hours with news, but sweet monkey Jebus, do we really need to keep hearing from this douchebag? I wanted to throw uneducated in front of douchebag but figured that someone would throw my lack of college degree back in my face so we'll just have to agree that Joe (or is it Samuel?) has all the intellectual curiosity of a gently stewed rutabaga.

To be honest the fact that he manages to remain in the public eye does not bother me as much as the fact that people seem to be taking him seriously. I mean bringing us the continuing adventures of Joe and Douchebag is one thing (although I would prefer we dedicate our precious national resoucres (read: airwaves) to the inevitable Paris Hilton v. Britney Spears v. Hillary Duff v. Christina Aguilera v. Lindsey Lohan pudding match) but inviting this guy to address the Republican Congressional leadership? Are you fucking kidding me? If this isn't the continuation of some massive piece of conservative performance art which began with the naming of Govv. Palin as Senator McCain's runningmate, then it better have been improv night at this meeting. At this point if they think Chucklehead Wurzelbacher would have anything substantive or useful to say, well, lets just say I am glad they don't have the keys to the castle any more.

Here is current media crush Rachel Maddow on the subject:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And here is a slightly more light-hearted take on the situation from Jon Stewart over at The Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Joe the Political Strategist

Daily Show Full Episodes
Funny Political Videos

Important Things With Demetri Martin
More Funny Videos

Seriously Joe, help a brother out and give our national stage back to vapid blondes babes with, ahem, talent.

Animated Videos 2 - Electric Boogaloo

Thanks to Katy C and VH1 I have a couple of updates to my Animated Videos post from the 19th!

First up is Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract" which topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks back in February of 1990 and then went on to win a Grammy. Featuring an animated cat, MC Skat Kat, who was voiced by Bruce DeShazer and Marv Gunn, the song is about how despite their differences Paula and Mr. Kat are perfect for each other:



I have to admit that hearing this song brings back some memories as I was in high school at the time. For some reason I STRONGLY associate the first Paula Abdul song I can recall hearing, "Straight Up," with riding the bus to school in the mornings. Boy isn't that a pleasant memory? And even though the video is not animated, I thought I would go ahead and share it here just because I can and lets face it, if you were a teenage boy at the time odds are you had a thing for Paula:



Of course I was more of a Samantha Fox boy myself. I mean how could you be in the throes of puberty and NOT find this inspiring:



After all we have chains, dodgy dance moves, a lingerie clad female, suit pants that are too short; what's not to like?

Okay, back to the subject at hand: animated videos!

Katy C also reminded me of Dire Straits' immortal song "Money for Nothing." This is the one that I could not believe I forgot about! I do not really think anything else needs to be said about this classic:


Watch Dire Straits - Money for Nothing in Music Videos  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

This brings us to the video I only saw this past week when I made it in to the gym and was able to workout during the five minutes a day when VH1 is playing music videos rather than crapping up the universe with more quasi-reality TV shows. The video for Kanye West's "Heartless":

Kanye West - Heartless (New Video) SubtitlesLyrics
Uploaded by ShanouMusik13

The rotoscoped character animation calls to mind Ralph Bakshi's work, in particular American Pop:



Of course whenever I think of Ralph Bakshi I think of his 1978 adaptation of the first half of The Lord of the Rings. One of the earliest memories I have is of my dad taking me to see that movie when we lived in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Oh well, I hope you enjoyed this rather meandering trip through some music videos. Let me know if you think of any other animated videos which are worth sharing.

Rachel Maddow and Power

Last night I caught this bit on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC last night:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

While she makes the segment a little more about the stimulus package, which I think is very important, however I found her discussion about the security issue interesting. We HAVE been told that we need to worry about terrorist strikes against our infrastructure and yet there is no mass panic because, even though some people are going to be without electricity for a few weeks, this was expected. It reminded me of the Joker's speech from The Dark Knight where he talks about plans and how when things go to plan, no matter how grotesque the plan is, people don't panic. I think the example of weather-related utility failures is an even more interesting example than the ones offered up by the Joker in light of how we have been told we need to fear utility outages as a result of terrorist action.

WTF Files - Facebook Advertising

I am guessing that the combination of having my sex, male, and relationship status, single, is what drives the almost constant parade of "score dates now!!!" ads with pictures of rather well endowed young women on the right side of the Facebook display. I am willing to suffer through this as they eye-candy is about as good as it gets during the work day, although I have always been a little suspicious of whether the hotties advertised are actually available through the various sites which pimp "Hot Christian Girls," which lets face it EVERY guy reads as "Yummy Catholic School Girls-R-Us" (or is that just me?). They are a little TOO pretty and a little TOO busty for me to believe.

Now I finally have proof that my suspicious were not completely unfounded as this series of pictures appeared on my Facebook page just an hour ago:


Take a look at the girl in the center photograph. Before anything else I have to say that I would LOVE to date a chick who could pull off a form-fitting garment with such, well, curvaliciousness, and I do like the short hair, but she might look familiar to a few of you out there. No? Perhaps this picture will help you out:


Still drawing a blank? Fine, hows about this picture:


Yeah, according to the Facebook advert, the H-O-T-N-E-S-S that is Jolene Blalock, who played the Vulcan T'Pol in Enterprise, is single and Christian. I can't speak to the Christian bit; however I am pretty sure she is still married to her music exec husband, Michael Rapino. (If not, she is welcome to give me a call. I am youngish, available, willing to be a happy house-husband and I TOTALLY make her look even hotter by comparison.

I was thinking of writing something about the attractiveness of dating a Vulcan here, but when I had it done it just made me sound kind of pathetic so I think I will just leave well enough alone; although there is something attractive about dating a girl who isn't going to get all emotional on your ass.

Oh yeah, because I love you guys here is a link to a collection of Jolene Blalock galleries. Don't say I never did anything for you chuckleheads!

Tanked

My original plan for today was to write about my plans for the year, specifically my writing plans, however I just had a phone interview for a job I *REALLY* want and I think I seriously tanked it so I am going to write about that instead.

First let me say that I HATE HATE HATE phone interviews. I like to think of myself as a pretty good interviewer, however over the phone it is very difficult to get a read on the interviewer. In this specific case every time I would finish an answer there was, what seemed to me, a long pause before the guy asked his next question. If we were in the same room I would be able to tell if he actually expected more of an answer from me or was using the time to formulate his next question. In addition I cannot tell how I am playing to the crowd, as it were.

The long pauses after my responses to his questions were not the worst part. At one point he asked what I saw as the greatest risk involved in producing electronic documents, or ESI in the parlance of the courts, and my answer was perhaps the worst answer I could have given. Part of me just watched in horror as I totally went off the rails and gave three mostly contradictory answers. There were words coming out of my mouth and I just couldn't get them to stop. Fuck, I couldn't get them to stop. It was like I had never considered the question before but I have. The risks involved in producing ESI, actually minimizing those risks, is one of the central things I do in my current job. I was so horrified at my answer that I wanted to call him back, apologize for freezing under pressure and give him my real answer. Now it is all I can think about. GAH!

My real answer, for the curious, is that in my view the largest risk with producing electronic documents in native format is that you will end up producing metadata which will be harmful to your case but somehow slipped through the review process without being noticed. This metadata would most likely take the form of tracked changes in a document. When the reviewer reviewed the document the tracked changes were not marked as being on and therefore the reviewer just viewed the final version of the document. When the document arrives at opposing counsel they notice that the tracked changes are available to view and, wisely, take a look at them. There is actually a recent case, White v. Gaceland Coll. Ctr. for Prof'l Dev. & Lifelong Learning Inc., where this very instance could have taken place. The plaintiff claimed that she was terminated in violation of the Family Medical Leave Act and, if I recall properly as I do not have my notes on the case in front of me as I write this, that there was a change made in a job description, or something like that, and that the timing of this change was important to the case. In this case it is very easy for me to envision an instance where her allegations are true however the paralegal who is reviewing the job description documents, which are kept in Microsoft Word for sake of argument, is reviewing them in Summation. The paralegal can either opt to view the document via the Summation edoc viewer (which in my opinion is a pretty piss-poor tool for native review) or via the CTRL+L option which will launch the document in its native application, in this case Microsoft Word. In the case of Summation's edoc review tool, as far as I know, there is no indication that the document has tracked changes embedded in the document therefore should the paralegal review here, and I know plenty that do, the document would be marked as relevant and as it is most likely not subject to any sort of privilege, it would eventually be produced with the metadata intact and NEVER reviewed. When it comes to trial the plaintiff's counsel, if they have caught the tracked changes, can then take apart a witness on the stand or, if the tracked changes are that central to the case, perhaps force a settlement.

Oh well, now that I have said what I really think, I think I am going to go eat my salad and sack out. No real update from me tomorrow evening as I will be at a book signing, however on Saturday I think I will post my plans for 2009.

Early Thoughts on "Amusing Ourselves to Death"

One of the Christmas "traditions" that has cropped up in my family over the past decade is that books make up the VAST majority of the gifts my father gives me. This year the haul included My Boring Ass Life* by Kevin Smith, Homemade Hollywood by Clive Young, Her Majesty's Spymaster by Stephen Budiansky, How Fiction Works by yours truly**, and, finally, Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Despite having plowed through, and enjoyed, the first three books on the list, as well as Rivals by Bill Emmott which I HIGHLY recommend, it is the final book in this list which has really grabbed my attention.

Amusing Ourselves to Death, whose subtitle is "Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business," was originally published back in 1985. Initially when I put the book on my Amazon wish list, from whence my dad did his Christmas shopping this year about two days before I cleaned it up and added a bunch of stuff, I had no idea it had been written over two decades ago. As I read the forward to the book, which I have reproduced below, I was chilled:

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldus Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain.
In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

As a consumer of HUGE quantities of media from books to movies to television, in fact Countdown with Keith Olbermann is on in the background as I write this, I find this line of reasoning rather chilling even if it goes along with something I have been thinking for some time. In essence I have felt, and may have complained about it on this blog, that for some time the public discourse in America had become painfully shrill, quite frankly was no longer civil. Of course as an alpha consumer of media I am complicit in the very thing which I decry, however I think the need to feed the 24 hour news cycle combined with the blurring of the lines between news and entertainment and the fact that the media treats consumers as though they have the attention span of a gnat has had a very negative effect on our public discourse. I am interested to see what Mister Postman has to say about this and even more interested to see what his take on it was while CNN and Headline News, then called CNN2, were still in their infancy.

Just thought I would let you guys know where my head is at in case there is a rash of meditations on modern media that end up being posted here over the next little while. I would also encourage EVERYONE out there to check this book out, despite only being about 20 pages in. I think Mr. Postman's voice and ideas are important for those of us living in the media circus world in which we live.

* This book continues my habit of buying books which consist of little more than blog posts dressed up to go to the Prom. Part of this stems from the slim hope that karmic payback might be in the offing and I can score a publishing deal at some point for all these random rantings of mine (I know I won't, but I can dream, can't I?) however the majority of the reason I continue to buy books which contain things I have already read for free on the internet is because these guys can just plain WRITE. Of particular interest in this volume is the nine-part series "Me and My Shadow" which, in the space of around 70 pages, chronicles Kevin's experiences with Jason Mewes' drug addiction. Check it out.

** This is a lie.

Half Man, Half Sausage

So the other night I was watching An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder and then the guy pictured with the mic asked, "If you were half man, half sausage which way 'round would you have it and why?"

The only reason I wanted to post this, besides being a BRILLIANT fucking question which I am going to have to unleash on someone at a Q&A (I suspect it might be Barry Eisler on his next book tour), is because of the look on this guy's face:

It struck me as being some where between "I can't believe he asked that" and "fucker stole my question." This thought amused me and I thought I would share with the world.

The New Maths

So Tuesday evening I met a couple of friends out at the Kelvin Arms and after seven weeks of consuming no alcohol of any stripe I thought I would celebrate my success in loosing weight AND making it through Lent without breaking my Lenten abstinence by having a single pint of Guinness. The next morning I awoke to learn:

1 pint Guinness + James = Hangover

This sucks worse than calculus.

Scratch-n-Sniff

Over the weekend my mother and I went to see the Pompeii exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Lucy exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. At the Lucy exhibit I picked up the book The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans by Chris Beard. Now, as the title suggestions, is all about the search for Eosimias (dawn monkey in Latin or Greek) and given my simian obsession is a must-read. Then I stumbled across this quote:

While such a predilection is common among lemurs, the dominance of visual pornographic media, rather than scratch-and-sniff cards, demonstrates that the same pattern does not hold among at least some anthropoids.

How often do you get to read about monkeys and scratch-and-sniff porn in a book where it is not pretending to be science but actually is science? Not often enough, me thinks, not often enough by far.

(BTW. You should go and check out the Lucy exhibit before it leaves town April 27th. It is well worth the money.)

The Calculus of the Soul

Inspired by this bit from 60 Second Science I spent part of my morning contemplating dark matter. It started with a joke based on the conception of dark matter being created when a scientist could not get his numbers to work with everything he knew. There was an effect that he could not account for therefore this scientist posited that something must be causing said effect. Since he could not see anything which would cause it then he would call this affecting agency Dark Matter and thus his formula worked. Basically I was poking fun at what appears to be a little cheating on the part of scientists to make their math work. This is the kind of crap I got in trouble for in school all the time.

Since I am a rational, well somewhat rational, adult who loves him some science, I understand the scientific process and understand the creation of the concept of dark matter is a result of this process that has been vetted by many people far smarter than I. Therefore I believe dark matter exists, however as I was thinking about this it occurred to me that for us unscientific types we have to take a lot of what Science tells us on faith. For some reason Hebrews 11:1 popped in to my head. This verse says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."*

This got me thinking that the arguments for why one should believe in the conclusions being derived from the more complex forms of science, such as quantum physics or cosmology, and the arguments for the existence of the divine are not so very different. In the end the argument will come to a point where you have to trust someone who has more knowledge and experience in the particular field. Both arguments rest on either direct experience or faith in what someone is telling you is the truth. Of course in questions of science you can set out to learn everything you need to know to construct the proof of what you have been told. It is conceivable for you to do this from the ground up via the scientific method and at the end of this process you will hold the sacred knowledge of SIN and COS; of quarks and leptons; of Heisenberg and Einstein.

Then there is the question of the divine? Can one prove the existence of divinity? You can, much like proving the existence of dark matter, spend years delving into the divine, studying what the great thinkers have said over the past several millennia. Read Thomas Aquinas, Plato, the Koran, and the Pali Canon. You can attend different masses across the world, spend a season in meditation in a temple, or hours in a sweat lodge. Who knows what you will see and experience on this journey as you gather the sacred knowledge. At the end will you be able to prove the existence of the divine? Is there some calculus of the soul out there waiting to be discovered or are we stuck having to have faith in those who have seen the truth?

I believe Truth exists, both in science and spirituality and that Plato had the right of it. There is a Universal Truth which each one of us holds within us. The scientific method allows us to work our way down to the truth of the physical world but it is our accumulated experiences and learning that allow us to work our way down to truth on the spiritual side.

I firmly believe in science and the methods we use to learn about the world. I also firmly believe that I have a soul and that soul is divine, at least in nature. To a certain extent I am confused by people who allow dogma to force them in to positions on the natural world which are untenable in the face of the evidence. To me they are no different than the Holocaust deniers which seem to pop up with alarming regularity. Even worse they are hypocrites since they expect people to accept the existence of the divine on faith while they themselves cannot accept provable facts, even if the proof is beyond their capacities.

I am not certain what my point is anymore as I have wandered fairly far afield from what I initially wanted to say. I guess this has turned into a stream of consciousness piece. I would like to close with this quote from Shakespeare:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Hamlet, Act I, Scene IV

I think these are important words to live by. There is always something new in the world that you never considered.


And just so you know, the Fearsome Flagellum is so my next sports team's name.

* This is the translation from the New American Standard Bible as shown here.