Addiction... ADDICTION!

Now that's what I am discussing.

Hey, that's mine...

So, I've added a widget from our Library Thing library. I'm finding a small but noticeable percentage of our books are borrowed -- I think I've labeled them all as such, but let me know if I missed any.

No Commercials, Though

While MSG's coverage of tonight's game was sub-par, with poor image quality and little sound from the arena, it was certainly superior to that of VS, which opted to play a still image of this guy for the entire game.

Starting Lineup

Brian Campbell of the Buffalo Sabres.



Sabretooth from the Xmen movie.



Clearly the same person. This begs the natural question, which members of the Xmen would make good men's hockey players, assuming a 'limited powers' rule?

Iceman, naturally. Very at home in the environment.
Magneto. Skates are metal.
Longshot. A lucky carom here and there would be helpful.
Gambit. Lots of practice with small flying objects.
Beast in goal.

Wave Of Babies

Overheard at work:

"I'm finding that I get sick a lot when I eat."
"That means the baby will have a lot of hair."

Criminy.

I've learned far more than I should about the birthing of babies from the apparent safety of my desk. Apparently water does not only break, but it can also be broken by a licensed physician -- an act I dasn't imagine. If you yawn, the umbilical cord will strangle the half-formed progeny. The mother's nose changes shape during pregnancy, but snaps back to normal at an undisclosed later point. Also, men simply do not get it, and they should try lugging around all that extra weight and having a hungry little person inside them for nine months before they complain about anything. All valuable lessons.

Click

Got something you want to work on? Start a blog. It has been working for my Victorian adventures, and it's sure to work for Debo's photography. Go check out his new photo plog:

http://debography.blogspot.com/

Enough!

Damn it! Stop using the word 'iconic'!

More Theory

Not to bring up the video games as art topic again, but here's a decent article on the topic. And here's a quote from it:

Molyneux says he and his crew at Lionhead Studios (now part of Microsoft) take a similar approach to creating games. “Does a painter decide to make art or paint a picture? Does a composer decide to compose a piece of music or make art? Does a film maker want to make a film or art? I think they're more concerned with evoking emotions and creating something meaningful and enduring.

“I set out, especially today, to instill emotions in the people who interact with my games, which are broader and more visual than they have been before,” he explains. “I want players to feel a range of emotions, not just excitement—that is my ambition. If on this basis some critics describe this as artistic, then I will feel like I have succeeded.”

Why must you mail me such things?

Just yesterday, the B A Start household received an adver-mailing citing the following:

Sham-rock Solid Savings!

We have found it -- after years of diligent work, American society has hit upon the platonic ideal of lame marketing.

#1 - Shamrock needs no hyphen. It's a word.
#2 - That being stated, "shamrock solid" makes no sense, but "sham rock solid" implies falseness. This is the point in the brainstorming session where I would have recommended scrapping the idea. I feel for the poor Cassandra who presumably did so in my absence.
#3 - "Rock-solid savings" also makes little sense.

"How were the savings at the store?"
"Oh they were solid. Rock-solid, I say without hyperbole."
"Dear me, that is solid. Rather solid. Perhaps I should go to the store. As the savings are not fluid, I assume I will have a similar experience to yours."
"I should say so. Quite solid, really."

All in all, just shameful.

B A Slow Down

Sorry for the dearth of posts, avid readers. I've had steam on the brain recently, and have started this blog to chronicle mes recherches into the Victorian Era.

Writing fiction set in a past time is presenting some challenges, but I'm finding the limitations to lend a little inspiration now and then. Instead of having to make up all of the "in a world where..." stuff, I can just look it up on Wikipedia. Noice.

Vote Petrelli

I wish I could say I dislike Heroes. That would be a lie.

The show possesses so many of the qualities I dislike. It's cheesy and trite. It mimics X-men more than a little too much. It reinforces racial stereotypes, including that white guys are evil. There are too many plots. They clearly have no idea how it is going to end. They keep getting rid of the characters I like.

And yet...

I mean, I could go the rest of my life without seeing another episode and still feel I have lived fully, but there is simply no chance of that happening. I will watch them all, the TV's blue light reflecting off of my grinning teeth.

Sad

Sometimes, people out east die playing video games. Please, people of the Orient, stop. Just make this stop. It's bad enough we're all seen as lard-ass weirdos who are forced to commit violent acts by these brainwashing machines, now we die from it? Come on. Get those kids outside.

It's a plane

What do the words 'labile' and 'superordinate' have in common? At a seminar this morning, the speaker used both words, neither of which I had ever heard before. Creeped me right out.

In other word news, I'm tired of the word 'iconic'. Ever since Superman Returns, I keep seeing it around the web. Stop it, people. We know you saw the movie.

Flapjacks and sugar water

Cabin fever has officially struck the B A Start household, and we're getting dangerously close to Jack-London-type conditions. There is, it turns out, only so much TV two people can watch, only so many pages of difficult books a woman can stomach, even a limit on the number of hours I can burn playing video games.

I spent the bulk of Saturday doing Mr. Fix-it stuff. That's how bad it's getting in here. So, do me a favor and pour some libations to the sun gods before this turns ugly.

I am a jerk

I keep forgetting to tell you that Mark has started a blog. Der.

Updates

It would appear that I am without a doubt not the guy. All for the best.

Had that standing meeting again, but we did o'er the phone. Thus, no new clothing-related colleges to add to my list.

That is all.

Alma Not

Step foot in a corporation and you will run the risk of getting pulled in to a standing meeting. This is not a meeting in which people neither sit nor recline, but rather a regularly-scheduled meeting which occurs whether it is necessary or not. My schedule is speckled with many. I offer this info as back-story to the following.

Date: Two Wednesdays ago.
Alex's clothing: blue shirt, blue blazer, blue-and-orange striped tie, tan slacks.
Comment: You look like you went to Yale.

Date: Last Wednesday.
Alex's clothing: red tie, white shirt, yellow sweater, tan slacks.
Comment: This week Alex wore his red tie so we would know he went to Harvard.

While these comments were certainly meant as compliments, I would like to set the record straight. I did not go to an ivy league college. I did not go to prep school, or even regular old private school. Neither did my parents. I don't have a trust fund, and have never 'summered' anywhere. I'm just not that guy.

I do get it a lot, though. I think it's a combination of the non-Lucy-Arnaz accent, my coming to this land from the exotic East, the British last name, the English major, and the whole good-fences-good-neighbors thing. To the casual observer, I certainly could be that guy, but come on. I get my ties at Target, for sake o' pete.

Yes, that says 'fanboy'.

Can't remember if I told you this or not (it's one of the side-effects of never paying attention to the constant stream of little gifts one's sensory inputs offers one), but I tried to get a job as a pro blogger recently. This post caught my attention, and I gave it a shot. "So, let me get this straight. I link to news stories from other sites and you give me money?"

I made the first cut, but it's been a few weeks since the second deadline, so it should be safe to say I'm not the guy.

The experience does beg a veritable horn-o'-plenty of questions, though. Are there other similar jobs out there? Is the time worth the supplemental income? Would it give me any writer cred?
Would it be fun?

As with all things writery, I'd love to try it. Okay, maybe not all things writery. I don't think I could bring myself to go to anything called a "blank jam" where blank is a style, genre, or type of writing. I draw the line at jams. Other than that, though.

Pardon My Dust

I'm going to be gradually reworking ye olde blogge format over the next few days.

Final Reality

Why not live life by experience points?

From their dice-and-paper roots to the modern user-generated worlds, role-playing games have always had to deal with the question of how a character develops. This is normally handled through experience points (XP). Kill a were-turtle, get 5 XP. Accrue 500 XP and you gain a level. Et cetera.

While certainly an attempt to recreate in some way a person's actual skill advancement in real life, it would seem that XP would work in the actual world similarly to the way it does in the digital. For example. Let's take a skill you want to develop, say running. Set a series of levels in front of you, and choose XP amounts for given tasks:

Go for a 1 mile run, get 1 XP. Go for a 3 mile run, get 4 XP. Run in a charity event, 15 XP. Finish within 1 minute of the leader in a competitive run, 200 XP. Run a marathon, 10,000 XP.

Level 1: 30 XP. Level 2: 500 XP. Level 3: 3500 XP. Level 4: 5000 XP. Etc.

So, you could get to high levels just by running a mile at a time, but getting there would take forever. Doing bigger things yields bigger numbers, and thus faster level-ups.

Here's a wrinkle: in games, a higher level means better stats. A level 2 character is stronger than a level 1, and that means an easier time killing beasties. Aside from the fact that you would actually improve, how would this work in real life? I say you'd have to have your friends involved, and the bragging rights would do it. Either that or have specific level tasks, e.g. you can't get to level 4 until you run the Turkey Trot, no matter how many XP you've got.

This could work for all kinds of things.

• Career -- go to a seminar, 10XP. Get the corner office, 5000XP.
• Arts -- participate in Nanowrimo, 150XP. Get published in a magazine, 500XP.
• Education -- go to a class, 1XP. Get a PhD, 10,000XP.
• Fandom -- read the Lord of the Rings again, 5XP. Go to Marquette and lie about doing a research project to get the Special Collections guy to bring out the secret not-for-display Tolkien stuff, 10,000XP.
  
• Connoisseur -- try a new beer, 5XP. Go to a wine tour in another state, 1,000XP.
  
• Family affairs -- email your mother, 2XP. Don't yell at Shannon on Xmas, 50,000XP.

Unfortunately, it could also work for negative things. Smoke a pack, 100XP. Perhaps this could be factored in. You want to stop doing something? Take the XP away from something you're working towards. So, say the F-word, take 5XP from your Runner class count. That's 5 miles you just lost. F indeed.

If you're willing to spend hours of your life pretending to be a druid and running around killing lizards until you can get that robe you want, why not take that rewards system and move it to real life? I'll DM.

Nanosomuch

I read the first few pages of William Gibson's Neuromancer today. I am always astounded when I come across an old book that predicted the present well. As soon as computers started talking to each other, a few books pushed the experience as far as it will go. Snow Crash (1992) did it, focusing on the social aspects of the 'metaverse'. Ender's Game (1985) did it, calling it 'the nets'. Two children take on identity-less roles and debate politics in public forums, eventually becoming the faceless voices of their age.

Neuromancer was published in 1984. For comparison, AOL for DOS came out in 1991. Netscape Navigator, 1994.

The term 'cyberspace' was coined here. It's the start of the cyberpunk genre, and from what I can tell also the start of modern life. Perhaps not the best book to be reading while adding to and revising my own scifi opus, what with the inherent comparison between this giant of the genre and my paltry puppet-show, but hey.

This Title Has Nothing to Do with Bending Anything

Um...

DAVID BECKHAM IS COMING TO AMERICA.

To play SOCCER.

PROFESSIONALLY.


In other news, David Beckham is coming to America. To play soccer. Professionally.

And Ever

B A Start Poll: What companies will still be around 1,000 years from now? Will we still drink Pepsi? Eat Cheerios? Use Faber-Castell colored pencils?

Bye Bye Birdie

I saw of these one time. IN A DREAM. Figures my clairvoyance would be limited to videogames.

The Wiff

Whoops. This is what would happen if I played hockey.

Quite

Those of us from New Hampshire call Martin Luther King Jr's birthday "Civil Rights Day". Just to be contrary, I think.

But wait, there's more

Not to belabor the writing thing, but I am embarking once again on a month of productivity. Like a twenty-five-year-old, I'm starting to flesh out. I'm shooting for an additional 30,000 words by month's end.

Joining me on this journey is the ineffable Greg, prompting us to name January Agnowrimo, for "Alex's and Greg's Novel Writing Month". Why not "Greg's and Alex's", you ask? Ganowrimo, pronounced after the fashion of a third-grade bully.

Nope.

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 80% Iron Man 70% Spider-Man 65% Batman 55% Supergirl 50% Green Lantern 45% The Flash 45% Hulk 45% Robin 42% Wonder Woman 30% Catwoman 15%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Dude.

Does your prose reveal your gender? Somebody thinks so. I tried this doodad three times, twice with passages from my nano concoction and once with a B A Start post.

Iteration 1: A scene in which two members of a ship's crew (both males) get into an altercation. Result: Female.

Iteration 2: A scene in which the main female character plans to tell her love interest a secret. Result: Male.

Iteration 3: This post about my perpetual interest in mod culture and fashion. Result: Male.

Having taken the prerequisite salt grain, I'm a little surprised. I know content and grammar are unrelated, but still.

Sphere Grids, but for tunes

So, this is cool. Does there seem to be a rash of bubble-to-line web music toys? First I run into musicovery the other day (which, by the by, has this rad animated .ico thing going on) and now this TuneGlue business.

Time was being a rock snob was hard, expensive work. Now all it takes is a Rhapsody subscription and some time. The rock snobs are making their knowledge available to the general public, an action I always thought was completely contrary to their ethos. The idea was to know good music and keep it from everyone else in order to maintain coolness. Now, I'm the music guy at work. Me. It's a world gone mad.

I'm guessing, though, that they're just toying with us. They still have their ivory tower CD collections, their secret stashes of the real dope. The sanctum sanctorum is still out there, guarded by grim mop-topped acolytes.

I'm a mocker!

Does everyone else find 50's-60's mod style intriguing? Please tell me I'm not alone on this.

Maybe I spent too much time watching The Prisoner as a kid, or maybe it was Julie Newmar in Catwoman garb giving me a few ideas about just what it was the grown-ups were all so interested in, but the aesthetic lodged itself in my pre-pubescent mind as being odd and foreign but irrepressibly fascinating.

Somewhere in the yet-to-be-digitized index card system in my head, filed under "fantasy worlds" in a bright yellow folder between "Arabian Nights" and "Norman Rockwell's America", one can find this weird realm where there is a dearth of lines and an abundance of uniform shapes. People wore triangles. The cartoons became freaky art pieces. Airline aisles became runways. The whole world was built with construction paper and green-handled safety scissors.

And from whence came this land of over-exaggerated poses? My guess is the film quality. Early color film always looks like someone got a little crazy with the saturation and brightness bars in Photoshop and left them set to "blandify". What to do when lost in a world of washed-outedness? Make big bright blocks of color and put them on the women.

Time for some thrilling heroics.

Words on zee nets is that someone is thinking about a Firefly video game, a massively-multiplayer online deal. This is dumb. You want to make something good? Here's how you do it:

#1: The base ingredients. What do we know about the Firefly universe? Interstellar travel, psychics, cannibals, and legalized prostitution.

#2: The spices. Q1: What does Firefly feel like? A: Old West. Q2: What's fun about Firefly? A: The language, sharp-shooting, wild stunts with spaceships, Kaylee.

#3: Mix until smooth. So, what we want here is a workable plot line which fits in the 'verse but doesn't feature any of the main characters. E.g. -- playing as Luke Skywalker is lame, but playing as Kyle Katarn is awesome. We'll set this in the post-unification, pre-Serenity timeframe.

You play as a newly-recruited Alliance agent who is sent undercover to gather up a young woman from a far-flung dirthole planet. You book a seat on a civilian transport (NOT the Serenity) and head out. You have some adventures on the way there and get to know the crew.

Once you get to Dirtonia, you discover that the woman you have been sent to bring in is a Companion, and a psychic one at that -- which makes her wicked good at her job. The Alliance wants her for the River experiment. You, being a good guy, decide to go rogue.

The overall plot pits you against an Alliance bigwig who is oppressing a dusty planet known for harboring Browncoats during the war. You and your ragtag band of misfits (you end up Captain, due to some serendipity) free the locals from his reign, cleaning up the single-horsed town.

Gameplay switches back and forth between rpg-action and flight-sim (reavers are out there). You meet up with various lesser characters in your travels (e.g. the Serenity's original engine guy -- you know, blonde tattoo dude? -- is on your crew.) and hit some of the locations from the show. Lots of shooting, quipping, and Blue Sun cola.

Joss? Call me.

So many K

Now over a week into the post-nanowrimo stupor, I find myself with few thoughts on the event, setting aside the following: I can now say "I have this first draft of a novel" instead of "I've been working on a novel", and this makes me more credible to myself. The revision stage will be long and repetitive, but now I know who the characters are and what they want, how the world works, etc. which makes the first round of re-write just consistency-checking. Still haven't reached the part where I worry too much about the prose being, you know, good, but when it comes I feel I will be better equipped.

All in all, I recommend the experience. Just being a participant -- having a website to go to and flashy wordcount trackers -- pushed me to complete draft uno of my magnum space opus, something I've been doing little more than putter around with for some time. I'm all for it.

Quick quiz post

What American accent do you have? Your Result: Boston You definitely have a Boston accent, even if you think you don't. Of course, that doesn't mean you are from the Boston area, you may also be from New Hampshire or Maine.
The West
The Midland
North Central
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The Inland North
The South
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

The Uncanny Xmas

How about this: A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen styled Christmas special.


One of Santa's elves: renegade wood sprite, out to end Santa's slavery.

Caspar: Powerful wizard from the Orient, perpetually searching for ways to extend his lifespan.

The Little Drummer Boy: soldier-spirit which reincarnates in a new body every generation, fighting in every war in the last 2000 years.

Frosty: The magic hat found its way on to a snow sculpture made in the shape of a giant polar bear.

Dasher: the man on the inside, flying beast and architect of the fabled 'reindeer games' combat simulation.

Jacob Marley: troubled ghost, looking for revenge on Xmas in general. He helped an old friend redeem himself one Christmas Eve, yet received none of God's forgiveness.

That's Salada Words

Woo hoo!

Merrimack where?

Coincidence?

Thirty days hath November. Thirty div 2 is fifteen. Today is the fifteenth.

50K words in Nanowrimo. I have 25K.

Some thoughts on the progress thus far: Actually writing the story takes you places you didn't expect, reveals things about the created world which you didn't fully realize, and shows you just how long it takes to move from plot point A to plot point B. Good times. Aside from an errant scene and my general dissatisfaction with the quality of the prose itself, I'm relatively satisfied with the book, especially looking at it as a first draft.

The issue is that I haven't really gotten to the cool stuff yet. Everything has been set-up so far. I have a feeling that if I want this to end up as a viable book, 25,000 will be a lot more like the one-third mark than the one-half. This makes sense; 50K is barely novel length.

See you in a few weeks.

Gabwhatna?

What the heck? Lehm. We all know where to go to get the quality stuff.

Roughly 25% and holding

So here we are. Seven days in, and over 12K down. I've been keeping ahead of the curve number- wise, but let me tell you, I have been writing some crap.

To be fair, some of what has made it to the page can be described as 'not altogether horrible'. A couple glints are even 'more or less passable'. A whole damn lot, though, is 'weak, hackish drivel'. Today was the first day that just bit. I mean, Jesus. Like, if I read this scene somewhere, I'd send a letter to the author asking him to cease and desist.

"I haven't gotten to the point yet where I really start padding for wordcount," he said in a hushed, conspiratorial tone, a mouse-brown eyebrow raised to form a thin peak. "But I can barely wait to see what kind of Harlequin bullshit I come up with when I do."

And..... go.

National Novel Writing Month has begun. Typety-typety.

Wave of the future

For you Googlers who keep coming here in search of the image of the new Sabres logo as Barney Rubble's hair, here's the link.

8334 of these and I'm set.

So, Debo sent me this. Awesomeness of the Hemingway story aside, a sci-fi story in six-words is good times. Unsurprisingly, Stephenson's is my favorite. So, here's my foray.

"Go back and uninvent time travel."

Oil runs dry. Android cars revolt.

Internet cables forge new ley lines.

Weapon experiment chain reaction incinerates atmosphere.

So I married a lizard goddess.

Boogedy

The byways roil with mist and the leaves grow sallow. Dripping black branches creak in the unnatural cold. The slow death that is autumn is upon us, and with it comes this cautionary tale.

A young gentlemen, accustomed to a quiet, sensible life of diligent work and pleasant conversation, took it upon himself to travel across the dim expanse of upstate New York to reach the city proper. The day before his trek began, a note arrived from his host-to-be.

"I have this … thing. See the attached picture – yes it does have a curse on it. It' s about the size of a skinny three year old – it would take up about as much room as a full backpack, say. It 's pretty solid, but not too heavy."

Already feeling the slimy tendrils of fear creeping along the back of his skull at the thought of driving into Gotham, the gentleman's fancy saw this cargo as a risk to himself and his passengers, a bogy who would plague him throughout the journey. "Poppycock," he told himself. "It is but a decoration, a maudlin statuette meant to arouse the humours. Enough of this tiresome foolishness."

His first act upon obtaining this ebon idol was to name him, passing the action off as humor and light-heartedness. In the quiet of his soul, though, he imagined the bogy might be pleased with him. As he considered an appropriate sobriquet, the syllable "ire" seemed to be whispered into his thoughts. "'Ira,'" he ejaculated. "'Ira' will do nicely."

In addition to naming the beast in the backseat of his car, the gentleman rested the map and directions for his journey on the folded lap of the statue. Again, he played it off as a joke, when in truth he felt the beast less likely to malign him if included in responsibilities of the trip.

The majority of the trek passed without incident, lit by an unusually bright full moon and headed toward the increasingly pink sky above the city. The gentleman forgot his fears, losing them in the gentle hum of the road.

As the car approached the bridge of Tappan Zee, the gateway to the city, the gentleman called for the directions. At the exact moment that the papers were removed from Ira's silent stewardship, a large object flew at the rapidly travelling car. A discarded paper box, large enough to hold an oven, lofted into the air and smashed into the vehicle, obscuring the view of the road. His pulse throbbing in his ears, the gentleman wondered if this, at last, was to be his doom.

A mere second later, the flattened box flew away. The gentleman and his passengers were safe, and the rest of the trip held no further excitements. Ira was delivered, never to be seen again.

So Fresh

One of the issues about living a nomadic life temporarily is soap. You end up using girls' soap. Important things to know:

#1 - It's not a bar. One of those weird upside-down bottles is filled with a goo that is meant to replace the time-honored bar. It's probably the one with the outline of a naked woman on it.

#2 - It smells weird. You're going to stink like apricots for a while. Or shea butter, whatever the hell that is.

#3 - It does stuff to you. I have no idea how this works, but girl soap says things like "stimulates" and "awakens" on the bottle. Girls expect a lot more out of their soap than dudes. For men, soap is for cleaning oneself. For women, soap is the key to unlocking the true self, confident and beautiful and independent.

Why Hip-Hop Sucks in '06

DJ Shadow? Dude, what happened? I mean, I was with you right up until this video. What's going on? Is there something you need to talk about? You can, you know, like call me if you need to get something off your chest. I tell you what. Why don't you come over on Friday and we'll get wasted and play Perfect Dark. Seriously, dude.

New Lap Record!

From the Triborough Bridge to Allen Street in 6 hours and 45 minutes.

Venn Diagrams are Sexy

Haven't had much to say recently, so here's a link for you.

The Sposta Postah

"Supposed to". It means "assumed true", but we use it to mean "should". "Jimmy Hoffa is supposed to be dead" vs. "You're supposed to watch out for that! It's your job!".

This is lame. I propose a new word: sposta.

spo-sta (spoh-stuh) - auxiliary verb.
1. should; ought to; must. He's sposta wash the dishes.

O, Blogworld! Unedited publishers, unite! Use the word! Show those leather-elbowed oligarchs at Merriam-Webster that the language is ours, that it lives here with us on our gaudy webpages and not in their dust-blanketed mahogany bookcases.

Let 'sposta' be the warning shot across the bow of their reputation. They would be wise to recognize our meager word -- if not we will hit them with a flood of new verbiage equally if not more base and plebian. We don't need their authoritarian condescension anymore, and if they don't want to be completely supplanted by pure democracy, that had best show we groundlings some respect.

Why should the linguists decide what is correct? Sposten't it be a decision made by all users of the language equally? How dare people who have dedicated their lives to the study of English claim the right to rule over it! Just because you have thirty years of experience and alphabet soup after your name doesn't mean you know more than us, especially if we're loud and numerous. Proletariat!

My Head is Full of Flames

Daddy, Daddy! Alex is quoting Elliott Smith again!

Now, son. That's only natural when people go back to work after vacation.

--

Dude, I went to the awesomest library this weekend. I don't want to wig anybody out, but I think it may have been created for me. One of those deals where God goes back in time and makes it so it was always there. See, I was talking about libraries with Dr. V. So I says to him I says "libraries should sell coffee and have free wifi". His reply? "We're going there tomorrow".

According to...

Add this to the litany of cautionary tales regarding the complete uselessness of the staff at videogame stores.

My dear old grandmother plays bridge regularly. She had a copy of Hoyle's Classic Games for her PC, with which she would practice her mad brizzidge skillz. The CD disappeared, and she needed to reinstall.

Now, one would think that if an old lady were to walk into a videogame specialty store with the case for an earlier version of a current title -- a title which was in stock at the store, no less -- and ask for help, she would leave with a newly purchased game. There, gentle reader, is where you would be wrong. Dear old Grandma was informed that they did not have the game and that she should leave with haste. I assume she was asked if she wanted to pre-order Madden '08.

On my recent visit to VT, a stop was made at the mall. Now, I'm not good for much, but finding videogames? Come on. I walked in, looked under "H", found the game, and purchased it. Clearly I have some kind of preternatural ability. What else could explain how I was able to make the game appear where none was there before? I certainly hope her bridge acumen improves, what with me foresaking my immortal soul and all.

Vacation

Considering this, I would like to point out that I am an HR information systems manager for a hospital. So, I'm #1 and #7 and work with lots of people in #2. Sweet.

Would pick a pocket

Quick wordplay post for you.

Terrible Silence

Looks as if the Mountain Goats will not be returning to Buffalo this year, despite their "see you next year" promises. I think... I think we may have scared them. The image of four of us standing far behind the crowd, arms crossed and heads moving just slightly in time to the strumming, while in truth a reverent meditation, may have appeared as disdain or even derision from the stage. The dude just fled off stage after his encore, as if about to chase the bottom of a bottle, break hotel furniture, and make incoherent threats towards abstractions.

Sausage Galore

You must go to SHPAAAAAAH!!!

That guy

Need some new geek duds? Swing on over to the cafepress shop and see just what it is I've been doing with my evenings.

UFO?

Finally! At last I learn what these damn stickers mean.

If it's good enough for Paine...

Throughout my bookish life, I have tried and failed several times to read various non-fiction books. It turns out I just don't have the stamina for it.

Here's the issue: they just don't need to be book length. For example, I am currently sweating through Guns, Germs, and Steel, which claims to explain differences in the technological development in various societies throughout history. I just read a whole damn chapter on wild almonds. Sorry, but the sentence "some wild plants lent themselves to cultivation better than others" would have suited me just fine. I have a feeling that when I reach the final page I will wonder why the author didn't just write a five paragraph essay.

I move we bring back the pamphlet. Go ahead and spend your adult life proving something -- just boil it down to the essentials for me. Thirty pages tops. And I know you think you have already, that you've tearfully stripped untold pages of vastly important details on the mating habits of horseshoe crabs which your editor told you the unwashed plebs just wouldn't be able to handle. Your editor is right. Trim that puppy down, no matter how a good thick book looks on a library shelf.

What will I do when you're gone?

Since B A Start appears to have become an etymology blog, can anyone tell me if the idiom "bite the dust" existed anytime between The Iliad and Queen?

I say, good show old man. Capital.

As I plowed through a writing project this weekend, I caught myself typing the stale phrase "that rarest of species". I know, I really am that stuffy. Maybe it's The Dante Club, maybe the Pride and Prejudice, but my English has become substantially more Queen's recently, probably to the same degree as Johnny's has become Queens.

Either way, I struck the phrase, assuming I was unconsciously quoting something. Damned if I can figure out what though. I mere googling returns a litany of articles using the phrase, but no source. I tried Shakespeare and the KJV. Even a thorough bartleby session turned up nought. (See? Who uses 'nought'?)

Anybody got anything on this? I mean, it must have come from somewhere. Three cheers to you if you find it. I'll toast your name with a sherry in the parlor and draw up an epigram praising your alacrity.

meme time

My 25 favorite TV chatacters (unranked):

1. Niles Crane
2. Jayne Cobb
3. Lucius Vorenus
4. Ironhide
5. Capt. Lewis Nixon
6. Shipwreck
7. Statler / Waldorf
8. Uncle Iroh
9. Riker
10. The Riddler (Animated, not Gorshin)
11. Tigra
12. Mandora the Evil Chaser
13. Lionel Luthor
14. Orko
15. Those spaghetti aliens from Sesame Street (yep, yep, yep, uh-huh)
16. Malcolm Reynolds
17. Skinner
18. Lt. Felix Gaida
19. Dr. Cox
20. Kaboobie the Flying Camel
21. Samurai Jack
22. Stormshadow
23. Bugs Bunny
24. Leonardo
25. Tom Servo

Old Gods and Ziploc Bags

Check this out.


Main Entry: her·met·ic
Pronunciation: (")h&r-'met-ik
Function: adjective
: being airtight or impervious to air —her·met·i·cal·ly /-i-k(&-)lE/ adverb
Her·mes Tris·me·gis·tus /'h&r-(")mEz-"tris-m&-'jis-t&s,/ Greek mythological character. Hermes Trismegistus was identified by the Greeks with the Egyptian god Thoth. To him was ascribed authorship of various works on astrology, magic, alchemy, and medicine. It was also believed that he had invented a magic seal to keep vessels airtight, and from his name the adjective hermetic meaning airtight was derived.

Deny Me Not

What? Son of a BITCH!

Is nothing sacred?

First we had to change all the maps. The Germanies combined, and the USSR didn't turn out to care that much about the U.

Then the food pyramid. All of a sudden, dead animal is good for you again.

Now the solar system? Setting aside the general dimwittedness of messing with a celestial body named after a death god, what's left? Are we going to add more states? Will we discover new half-elements, requiring us to carry atomic number to at least the tenths? Perhaps an additional stanza can be added to the Gettysburg Address. A new color of the rainbow, something between red and orange, just to mess with Mr. Biv? How about another Great Lake?

Old Bean

I promise this isn't really about videogames. I mean, a little, but not much.

The black and pink versions of the DS Lite are being released in the US quite soon. 'Onyx' and 'Coral Pink', I should say. Now, in Japan they called it 'Noble Pink'. Why the switch?

Does pink mean something other than 'feminine' in Japan? Is it associated with the nobility there, as blue and purple are to the anglosphere? Are Japanese more likely to respond well to concepts of nobility and class structure? Does Nintendo fear we will take up arms against their nobles and overthrow them, establishing 'Casteless Pink' and 'Merit-based Salmon' DSes?

I kinda miss Mega Man

Know what I haven't done in a while? New B A Start banner. Any suggestions?

Insert 'Other 364' Joke Here

The United Way Day of Caring means two things:

1) No morning shave.
2) A half-day in the office with a T-shirt and shorts on.

I become a ninja when not in my business cadzh. Several unsuspecting coworkers took a step back and gasped when I said 'hello', unaware that the non-descript shape heading towards them was indeed I. I vow to you this day, gentle reader, not to use this power for evil. After all, Yojimbo is still out there somewhere.

Finest

I don't really remember my college roommate being that into baseball cards, but The Onion is the world's finest new source, so I suppose I have to believe it.

Irony?

Things seem to have quieted down a little on the "videogames as art" front, so I'll tell you the following.

Took a tour of the Erie County Holding Center this week. In the library therein, the dictionary had been opened to "utopian socialism".

A Stupid Commercial?

Esquire recently published an article about the fact that serious criticism on videogames does not exist. No incisive essays, no erudite articles, just "dude, looks like Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy* is gonna be sweet" stuff. As someone with experience reviewing games, I feel I must state the following: videogames are not art. They just ain't.
It takes a lot of artists to make one, and some of them can have truly brilliant imagery, but I have yet to see the game that's art. Artistically presented maybe.

In my (albeit limited) experience, professional criticism often takes one of two forms:

A) The secret decoder ring. "Here's what the artist/author/composer is trying to say, dimwit."

B) The petri dish. "Here are all of the religiosociopoliticaeconoclimatic factors kicking around in the spacetime locale in which the artist/author/composer worked. Put it all together, and how could he not end up writing this? Hmmm, dimwit?"

These approaches require that the author actually be saying something, whether he means to or not. I'm just not seeing it. When I sit around and talk about games, relevance never comes up. This is due mainly to the fact that it's not there.

I mean, come on. Let's give it a try.

"The major statement made by Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 comes to its zenith when the audience unlocks Darth Maul as a playable character. At that precise moment in the play experience, expect to turn to your fellow aficionados and reverently gasp the syllables "skateboarding is totally fucking awesome". "

"In summary, after witnessing the stunning victory of Natalie Cook and Kerri Ann Pottharst at Sydney, Team Ninja's 2001-02 Japan had begun to taste the beauty of the occidental sport of volleyball, which, in combination with the new Xbox's hardware and man's enduring fascination with breasts, made a perfect world in which to develop Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball."

Please.

* No really. That's an actual title.

Fishmonger

The decorative style in the B A Start household can most easily be described as "libraryey" or perhaps "libresque". We like us some books. Her Worshipfulness, though, has often bemoaned the fact that a collection more often lacks uniformity, looking hodge-podge and patchwork.

My solution: why not pick up some large collections? We'd use them, and they have a standardized look. (Can you see how my nefarious plan is working? Slowly but diligently I move towards attaining my life-long goal of owning the OED.)

Here are some I've had my eye on:

The Harvard Classics -- the "five-foot shelf" meant to equal a liberal arts education. Haven't been in print for years, but a little Ebay action should do it.

The Loeb Library -- The left page is in Greek or Latin, the right page the English translation. Both pages contain the foundations of Western thought.

The Oxford English Dictionary -- Online subscription, shmonline subscription. If the full 20-volume version seems like overkill, too bad.

An Open Letter

Dear Mark, Johnny, and Greg -

I write to you to apologize. As you may remember, at Goose's wedding we sat together. I had tied my tie with a windsor knot, and each of you had tied his with a half-windsor. When someone commented on my more formal, dare I say stately, knot, I took the opportunity to mock you, saying that I was the only person at the table who did not look as if he was going to his first communion. This was, perhaps, a bit much.

Please accept my apology. Also, the fine folks at Brooks Brothers have put together a site to help us learn even more knots. I couldn't help but think of you.

Yours,

Alex

Not much

I do dig these old posters.

Kinda boring, too

Looks like ma bookie Del is slowly working his way towards stardom, his likeness appearing in an ad for what appears to be for a videogame in which you point at the sky and say "Holy shit, it's the Christ!". Maybe you kill demons or something.

I normally eschew discussions of religion on B A Start, but here's what bugs me about the rapture. So, all the good people go to Heaven and everybody else stays of Earth, which has recently been transferred to new ownership. What kind of Heaven is it to watch loved ones suffer at the hands of Satan? I mean, you get up there, look around, and notice a few coworkers are missing. Doesn't that bug you a little when they hand you the harp, the knowledge that people you know will spend a thousand years being tortured? Or is that the kind of thinking that gets you kicked out. Either way, it just doesn't sound all that heavenly to me.

Boo!

Unbearably hot weather marks the beginning of a season in the B A Start household; time to start figuring out what to dress as for Halloween.

The great conversation lasts months, with scores of concepts tossed aside until the winner is declared. Then, the day before the event a final switch-up is made, and well-planned wigs, props, and oddly-colored glasses find themselves put out to pasture without even seeing use.

In the past few years, I've been Buddy Holly, the Invisible Man, and the Mad Hatter. What will this year's jam sessions bring? Only the Ghost of Halloween Future knows for sure.

Dancing's for Another Day

Today's lunchtime conversation: Fraggle Rock.

The Doozers, the benevolent hard-hatted fairies of the Fraggle world, baffle me. What a horrid existence, consumed by the sisyphean task of building and rebuilding their radish-steel buildings, only to watch as the relatively giant fragglekind eat them for pleasure.

Perhaps, though, they have attained some atlantean zen society. If it weren't for the sons and daughters of fraggledom, they would be able to build their sugary utopia in days. What, then, would they do with themselves? Life without work is misery, so why not create an impossible task for you and yours? An entire species devoted to an unattainable ideal, happily plugging away towards it until judgement.

This, clearly, is the secret of their people, known only to the eldest of the Doozer elders. And the Trash Heap, of course.

Lost It's Wheels

Sorry for the lack of posts, diligent B A Starters. Been running around like a looney tune since the last installment.

I'll take a quick moment for this rumor. Allow me to say that I doubt it. What about Mark Hamill?

Know my place

Went to a show the other night and everybody but me was dressed like Elliott Smith. I was dressed in my work clothes, looking more than a little like a put-upon divorced father on his night with the kids. I think I'm going to go buy a black t-shirt and one of those Fidel Castro hats to keep in storage for just such an occasion, one in which I need to dress like I'm acting out in order to blend in.

Tech Marches On

Jess: How do I save this?

Alex: Just hit the button that looks like one of those old floppy disks.

...Stays Together

Now that's what I am discussing. And to think, I didn't bring my DS to the hospital out of respect. How long before young Maeve gets a chance to blue shell the old man? Should Unkie Alex's christening gift be a Noble Pink DS lite?
Girls like pink, right? Do you buy gifts for christenings? I really have no idea how this all works.

Kind of a ramble

As a teenager, I got into a fight with the Religious Right. The Merrimack school board went God on us, and started doing crazy stuff. Things got messy. Here's what Wikipedia has to say on the topic:

In recent years, Merrimack has also been a battleground of sorts for the Gay Rights and school prayer movements in New Hampshire and nationwide. In the mid-1990's, led by a conservative majority, the Merrimack School Board passed a series of school regulations banning what they called "Homosexual Acts and Homosexual Materials" in the school district and mandating a district-wide daily "Moment of silence". Banned actions included same-sex hand holding and hugging. Banned materials included any literature written by purported homosexuals. Merrimack erupted into a firestorm of political debate, bringing the town into the forefront of the growing debate over homosexuality in the U.S. The scandal culminated in months of dramatic regionally televised school board meetings, student-led walkouts, and a national news special. Today, the district still observes a daily moment of silence, but the bans on homosexuality have been all but forgotten.[3]

As you can imagine, the 'live free or die' types didn't like this very much. Our parents held large meetings in their homes to discuss how to fight the board or support it. Any public event became polarized, with knots of people looking askance at one another. Whose hand did you shake? Who did you ignore? Were you with side A or side B?

I was into it. I argued the topics all the time. I coughed or dropped things during the moment of silence. I interviewed the school board members on their opinions on a variety of sensitive topics, and published their responses verbatim in the school newspaper right before an election, trying to give the jerks the rope required to hang themselves. I imagine I alienated a lot of people without realizing it, but hey. It really bugged me.

Why do I bring this up? I ran across the issue today as I read this page on banned books. Good old Merrimack.

The concept of book banning was one of the many that pissed me off back then. The very term got my blood boiling. What I realize now is that is a high school strikes a book from its curriculum because it contains a swear word or a sex scene, it's not that big of a deal. We can always go to the public library and get it, or the book store.

Now, if a book is removed from the curriculum because it was written by a homosexual? That's a real problem.

Overall, I'm glad I ran across this reminded of my hometown's past (and present) today. While my juvenile fervor may have subsided a little, topics of public school literature curricula and school prayer still get a rise out of me.

Oh Baby

Just in case B A Start comes before Royal Toybox on your daily read list Les Garvois have had their baby. Thanks mucho to Esther for keeping us all posted. I have to confess to being on serious tenterhooks after a call involving some kind of broken water.

But you didn't come to B A Start for baby talk. Instead, I offer you my personal review of Ultraviolet.

Imagine a movie based on a comic book. I don't mean 'based on a comic-book character', I mean written and filmed as if taken directly from the pulpy pages of an illustrated periodical. All of the super-cheesy lines kept. Lots and lots of action which, while good-looking, doesn't have any purpose. Yick.

Maybe if the fighting was better I would have enjoyed it more, or if I had seen the effects on the big screen... no. No no no. It was just awful.

Grrr...

Ever been so angry you can't see? It's awesome.

The Blessings of Liberty

Happy Independence Day everyone. I love America.

In the spirit of this celebration, I have a recommendation for you: start watching the History Channel's mini-series The Revolution. It's one of the best documentary series I have watched, particularly due to the variety of POV's brought to the table by the experts they interviewed. That West Point dude is hardcore.

Also here are some hi-res images of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution etc. They're JPEG, which is weak sauce, but still. Patriots delight.

Patriotism in a time as frustrating as ours can be dangerous. People think you're crazy or stupid or evil. Here's my deal: my love America is for the ideals, not necessarily all current practices. Inalienable human rights. The self-evident truths. A more perfect union. Above all, liberty.

When our elected leaders do things in accord with our ideals, I applaud them. When they do not, I malign them, and as I do I take comfort in the fact that they can be voted out of office. We don't have to wake up each morning and hope that the dictator dies soon, and that his son will be better to us than he is.

A difficulty comes when the will of the people is wrong, by which I mean it does not live up to the aforementioned ideals. Thus a republic can be better than a democracy, but only when the leaders are virtuous. A healthy mix of both seems to be working out fairly well.

Thus, I urge you to celebrate our freedoms and liberties today. Wave a flag and love the nation that should be, and mostly is. If this were a speech, I believe I would have the audacity to recite the preamble to the Constitution right now, but instead I'll just link to it.

Hulk Bandaid

At the end of Superman Returns, Jason is wearing Aquaman pajamas. Are we to assume, then, that Singer's next movie will be Aquaman? Or at least the costumer's?

Meh

Please enjoy this wild rumor.

Once upon a time, an official NHL website had pictures of the redesigned Sabres jersey, something for which the people of the hamlet of Buffalo had been pining. A silly boy posted the pictures accidentally.

"O, no," the boy said. "I will surely be whipped until my skin is in tatters and fed to the boars!"

He leapt up and removed the pictures, but it was too late. They had been stolen.

"Joy!" shouted the people. "A new logo!"

"The blue and the gold are there," they said.

"It looks like Barney Rubble's hair," they said.

"It is both old and new," they said.

"It looks like poo," they said.

What the people did not know is that the new logo was enchanted, drawn by a wise old man who lived alone in a mountain cave. Men who wore the sign became faster and stronger, and their weapons would not break. They beat devils and lightning, hurricanes and maple leaves, panthers and finally flames to steal the silver chalice and return with it to the little hamlet. And the people of the hamlet were happy.

That Old Time Religion

Aside from the Geek Day status that a comic-book movie opening receives, today marks the end of Ordinary Time. After tonight's festival a new season begins, a season of rebirth.

Yes, going to see the new Superman movie is going to be roughly equivalent to a deeply religious experience, whether I like the film or not. The only son of a benevolent creator sent to Earth to save us from ourselves? The most powerful force in the universe walking among us, as one of us? How doesn't everyone feel this way?

Goo goo goo joob

Finally got around to picking up Brain Age for the DS, the software that claims to be a good daily regimen for keeping the grey matter in good shape. While it doesn't come out and say "prevents Alzheimer's" anywhere, that's certainly the idea. Three things:

1: It's actually quite fun. I wouldn't have thought doing 100 simple calculations as fast as possible would be enjoyable, but I guess I should have.

2: Nintendo's got to be laughing all the way to the five-story italian-plumber-shaped piggy-bank they keep their yen in. The game's selling as if it was hotcakes, and a whole new demographic has opened up. I mean, go to the site and look at the marketing. These people ain't playing Mario Tennis.

3: I'm discovering that a good alternate title could have been "Handwriting Age". O, Mrs. Robinson! Why did I not listen and learn decent handwriting from you? I live in shame.

Not really a post

Here's something cool I saw on Digg. Yes I know that sounds like spam.

Noun, verb, and adjective in one.

Some time ago, an unclaimed pair of very stylish sunglasses sat on the counter in the men's room near my office. Even without close observation, one could see that they were of great value. There are many services offered by my company, but a Lost-and-Found is not one them, so I let them lie there untouched. Later that day, I saw them being sported by one of the Housekeeping staff, oddly disparate with his dingy uniform.

Months passed as per normal, and I did not realize that I had not seen the housekeeper since that day. This was made abundantly clear to me today, when I saw this fellow in the corridor wearing the same sunglasses. There was something different about him, something difficult to place one's finger on. Something about his gait perhaps, or his facial expression? Or perhaps that he was dressed in full pimp gear, complete with hat, cane, and bright red suit. I do not use hyperbole when I tell you his outfit looked very much like this, but substantially more pimp.

Apparently I missed my chance to don the charmed glasses that would transform me from my mundane self into a natty pimp. I feel okay about it, though, as I have received mixed reports on whether or not that profession is easy.

Statement

Elmwood needs a damn post office, or at least a UPS Store.

Good night

There is some allure to staying up past the times deemed appropriate and well into those known as "too late" when one has to be at work doing noxious things in the particularly early AM, some awful draw that convinces one that actual life takes place after all well-meaning citizens have bedded down.

There's a feeling of superiority, a self-designated elitism that comes to one upon realization that too much caffeine has been taken to ever get to sleep now. More than a small dose of masochism laces this feeling, or perhaps it is sadism directed towards the day-time version of yourself. Here's a chance to make that simpering shade of the real you pay. He'll be late, barely functioning. The day will be an utter waste, and he will be even further behind. What control you have, what power over that hapless fool's fate.

And when you finally do wake, a light taste of that feeling lingers somewhere in the gaps where your wisdom teeth used to be. For a dull moment, before the shower and shave and drive and coffee, you will remember that life of quiet and strength.

Hot hot hot

Ma bookie Del finished Gates of Fire. Ah, another satisfied customer.

The only real issue I have with Gates is that it should come with a disclaimer, which should read as follows:

Dear Reader,

You will doubtless find yourself looking up to the Spartans during and after your reading. Please note that they were very, very bad people. No, really. They had a huge slave population which worked day and night for the "real" Spartans, and every male citizen had to serve time on the Secret Police, who would creep around at night kill any slave who stuck out from the crowd. Bad.

Enjoy your purchase!

Do what?

You may not have noticed, but the incomparable Alanna has a blog now. You should, of course, go and check it out.

On a related note, this. Seriously? Has it come to this? (Insert witty obscure Labyrinth reference here. I've got nothing but that "power of voodoo" business.)

The scan's from this month's Play magazine. I swear I only read it for the articles.

True fact

My hotmail password has been the same since around early 2000.

The tics of the polis

Not to go all Undercaffeinated on you all, but today I post on a political issue. I know, I know.

The Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority has released a press... um.. release stating that the city could save all kinds of moolah if we slashed city employee benefits. They compare the amount they employees pay to some "average worker" numbers and that kind of thing. In summary, they're saying that if we worked with the state govt to make the benefits packages less awesome, we'd save. They present these packages as disgustingly good and vastly expensive.

Here's the thing.

#1. Duh. Benefits, particulary healthcare, have become veddy veddy expensive recently, and employers everywhere are freaking out about it. So, easy target.

#2: When talking about public employee costs, you should really be making your comparisons based on total compensation, that being salary + bens. Nice benefits packages are a good way to entice people to work thankless and dangerous service jobs with traditionally low salaries. The taxpayer doesn't want anybody getting rich off his dime, so sal stays lousy. Bens can increase without anybody getting too wound up about it.

Until now, that is. Good for the Fiscal whatzit for looking at it, but before we go and slash the bens of people that haven't received a raise in years, let's make sure we look at the whole story.

And I'll do it

I'm about ready to go out and find blind spots.

Watched Layer Cake last night.

Top Five Reasons I Would Make a Poor Drug Dealer:

#1: Too penny-ante. The whole always-a-bigger-fish thing seems to come in to play often.

#2: Not British. Honestly, I'm not. Awfully close, but just not.

#3: The metric system. Kilos? That's plain un-American.

#4: Don't use enough unintelligible slang. Also, don't call anyone "my son".

#5: No fashion sense. Apparently adjectives such as "snappy" are used to describe coke dealer dressing habits.

Links

Ah, Buffalo -- where all know all. Sightings of our city's residents will often mean uncovering unknown connections. For example, take these two recent thoughts:

There's a friend's uncle talking with that guy who runs that thing at work.

There's that guy who used to come in to Kinko's every Saturday walking with my college roommate's cousin's ex-girlfriend, who happens to be my neighbor's daughter.

Baffling.

Some things never change

My brother, hereinafter referred to as "3L", moved to town. Here's our dinner conversation last night.

3L: If you really appreciated her cooking, you'd do the dishes.

Alex: If you really appreciated not being punched in the mouth, you'd shut the hell up.

3L: -extends middle finger-

The joy of family life.