The Incomplete Blog

Adventures in car trouble, ad nausea: Lessons from the used-car salesman.

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:41:50 GMT

Back when I worked it technical support cubicle hell, we had a new member of our team show up. He was a heavyset man with a buzz cut and a pencil thin-moustache, and he wore a shirt and tie to work when everyone else was in t-shirts and jeans. My first reaction about him was this: He's a used car salesman.

He had a framed photo of himself, his father, and his brother. The family resemblance was striking. My reaction: They're all used car salesmen.

In no time at all he was leading team meetings, which we had never had before, and he explained to us that as technical support slaves, our job was to take calls, and to remember (and this is a direct quote): Ka-ching, ka-ching, make those registers ring.

I promptly ignored everything else he had to say, except he did explain that he was working in technical support cube farm hell because his family used car sales business wasn't doing so good.

Yesterday we walked past one of the few bazillion car lots on 99E, and there was a nice Mazda Protégé, reasonably priced, clean, and we wanted to take a look at it. A salesman arrived, but with a small group who drove it off the lot. We decided to start our day at the same lot, where we found a 2003 Kia Optima with 107K miles.

The Kia Optima is one of those highly reliable cars, gets good reviews, good return on value, and frankly drives like it doesn't have a soul. It performs remarkably well. It's smooth, this was a 5-speed so we had some control over it. It was comfortable, practically the same interior as our Mazda 323 with a few quirks (no cover on the console storage, so no arm rest, and some of the button were missing).

It was $5500, which is more than we can afford, but we do have the bank of Mom and Dad. The BoMD also has a requirement: a third party mechanic must look at the car. Now this car lot offered a lifetime warranty of 50% off all parts and labor. They have faith in their mechanics and their cars. There was a very subtle hint that they are a Christian business. The phrase "with God's help" appears in their mission statement. We were pretty comfortable with the Kia.

So we took it to a mechanic. It turns out the car is in good condition, but the regular maintenance schedule means there's about one thousand in timing belts, overhauls, spark plugs, etc. They didn't have a Carfax report, but they had a competitive report, which told us the car had 70K miles put on it in 13 months. That's a lot of hard usage.

The BoMD told us to trust our judgment, and our feelings were souring on the Kia. Fine car, but it's really a $6500 car now.

So we decided to pull out of the deal. We took the car back, explained most of what we found, and walked away.

That surprised me. I suppose I walked faster than necessary when leaving the lot, but I wanted out. I told a salesman no when just a few hours earlier everything looked good. What we didn't tell them was a search through the Better Business Bureau pointed to four complaints in the past 36 months, with only two resolutions. The BBB advises against buying from this company.

So we didn't.

I learned that all of my old conceptions about used car salesmen are outdated. They are more clever, more subtle, and time their interactions by some psychological science designed to make the customer feel they are in control over a situation when they, in fact, are not. The goal to push financing is the same. You offer them a set amount of cash, immediately, and they tell you it's better for your credit to only pay a down payment and get a loan that you know you can payoff anytime.

I learned that even though they are reluctant to let a third party mechanic look at, they will. They will warn you against all the little things mechanics "find" and the way they say it makes the quotation marks perfectly clear. They do not trust mechanics, except the guys they've hired to do all the maintenance on vehicles, and to fulfill the warranty they offer. Still, it's not enough.

It's not enough that they feel good about the vehicle. Everyone has a vested interest in selling you things. I remembered the wisdom of Wesley in The Princess Bride: Life is pain. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

So no new car yet, but there is a surprise ending, which I'm saving until tomorrow.

Oh great LJ Hive Mind...

Fri, 09 May 2008 19:58:16 GMT

I know what Jew, Christian, and Moslem mean. They refer to people who follow Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Are there similar words for people who follow other religions or ancient mythos? Egyptian or Norse mythos, in particular.

I know I heard a term for one of these last year, or maybe the year before, but for the life of me I can't find this on the internet.

...And pagan is too generic, and I don't think appropriate for the story I need this for.

Thanks for any help.

Whittling away on that reading list

Thu, 08 May 2008 23:15:18 GMT

I borrowed Lisa Yaszek's Galactic Suburbia from a library this week. I'm enjoying it. I've been writing female narrative characters more often lately, and I'm not sure why. After hearing an interview with the author on SciFiDimensions, and it sounded interesting. The ideas that women wrote about tie in nicely with modern science fiction's "slipstream" or "literary" push, that is, more towards "character-driven" instead of "gadget-driven" stories.
I'm not sure I'm capturing real people with the women I'm writing about, but I have three women who read my stuff and I trust them implicitly, I'm just not sure I can do everything they suggest with the stories.
Reading the book has inspired me to write. Reading a preview of jaylake's Green inspired a dark fantasy story that I'm tempted to write. It's great. I'm inspired to write, and I have two hours of free time to do something.
So I'm off. Wish me luck.
And in the meantime, check out Galactic Suburbia. It's a good read, sometimes dry, but it is an academic work, and it has given me a reading list with names like Judith Merrill and Shirley Jackson to explore.

PS. I work in a library, and love having access to books. I hate not being able to add my own marginalia to these books, so I consider a library book a test drive. Galactic Suburbia is now on my wish list for books. I think this book is worth owning and it deserves to be part of my permanent collection.

Adventures in Car Trouble Pt 3, in which I lose hope for a while

Thu, 08 May 2008 22:54:19 GMT

Let's see, where was I? Oh yes, living in the hopelessness of car trouble. The Infiniti is totaled by the insurance company. We get our payoff tomorrow, but it won't be much. We do have some savings for a new car, but not enough, really, to match what we had.
But we have the 92 Mazda, the backup car, the moldy speedbump on wheels, right? Well, no.
After I lost the truck and took over the Mazda, we spent the payout on the Isuzu to get the Mazda up an running, and we had about $200 left over to seed the new car fund. We swore an oath to not spend more money on the Mazda. Gas, oil, that sort of routine stuff is fine. A $670 clutch is not, but that's what the mechanic said we needed. So, pretty soon Mazda go bye-bye.
In the meantime, we get to go car shopping.
Joy.
You can fill in whatever emoticon you want, I'm not thrilled.
Thinking on all of this, and stepping onto a bus to find my dear friend Becky (a.k.a. Toots the Fairy) driving the thing, and catching her up on life such as it is, I realized what I'm really not happy about is the change all of this requires. Yes, I found driving the Mazda an absolute dream compared to the rental Joke. Yes, I'll take a sixteen-year-old-no-power-steering-and-no-stereo manual over that thing. I will miss the Infiniti, I will miss the Mazda. I miss my truck. But things change. We can't keep the same routine as much as I find comfort in it. I don't want to move because of the hassle, but I'm sick of this one-step-up-from-a-slum. I'm tired of driving 25 miles to work (or spending two hours on the bus) to get to work. But I like the routine, and I'm trying to break the constant bitch-fest lifestyle that I enjoy so much.
In other words, I'm conflicted, numb, and not sure I'll fall in love with a car again.
But time will tell.

Adventures in Car Trouble pt 2, in which I audition for Top Gear

Mon, 05 May 2008 01:10:35 GMT

The next step in these lengthy car repairs is to rent a car. With the Infiniti out of order, and the Mazda starting to act up, we felt it safest to use the car rental part of our policy. Stephanie walked to Enterprise (yes, they deliver, but it's two blocks away) and got a 2008 Pontiac Grand Prix. Red. It's sporty. It's new. It smells of shampoo and that New Car Smell refresher. I don't think I've ever driven a car with only 9000 miles on it. It is not the treat it is meant to be.

The windows are narrow, so I feel like I'm driving from the inside of a cylon helmet. The seats force me to lean back, because proper posture in this car would press my forehead against the sun visor. The central console is tilted towards the driver, which helps with reach, but it makes it harder for a second person in the car to change the stereo, put in a CD, or anything a driver may ask a passenger to do.

There is a logical place for the clock: a small screen in the center of the dashboard that's easy to read with bright red letters. It will tell me the miles driven, the date, the incessant need for oil, but not the time. The clock is part of the stereo in the middle of the central console. It is not as bright, but not as easy to read as my forearm, when I am holding the steering wheel, is directly between my eyes and the clock.

The steering wheel has two hand grips at roughly 2:45 and 9:15. These aren't the two points I am comfortable holding the wheel at, but the bulges of the hand grips forces my hands to the top of the wheel or elsewhere because my natural wheel hold is half on and half off the grips. The steering wheel also has metal supports, which is distracting.

And all of this is just sitting in the car. Adjusting the seat is easy. There's a nice four-way lever that moves the seat back and forth, up and down, and tilts. Then there is a lever to adjust the recline. Half electronic, half manual.

And I might as well mention it now, with the narrow band of windows, I can turn to look to my right-hand blind spot just fine, but my left-hand blind spot? I turn. I see the headrest.

This does not make me feel safe, which is strange because the experience of the driver's seat is one of safety and cocooning. Okay, that's extreme. It's slightly claustrophobic and not helped by the main overhead light sitting on a bump that juts away from the roof, or having to lean in and look out from under the windshield to see the lights at about a third of the intersections I drive in.

A safe driver also wants to see their blind spots, and since I can't see one of them at all, at least I have the luxury of large side mirrors that make the blind spots open range. In fact, the mirrors are so large the sporty feel of the car is ruined by Alfred E. Neuman side mirrors.

Let's take this thing for a spin. I drive on the highway and streets equally in my weekly travels, so I think I get a good feel for the car.

Driving is a full-body activity for me. It requires a hand on the wheel, a hand on the shifter, a foot on the gas, and a foot on the clutch, and twists and turns of the torso to scan blind spots. The Grand Prix is an automatic. I need one foot, one hand, and spend more energy trying to not clutch the brake or shift gears, for I have none to control. Take away the need to turn my head much and I am no longer connected to the vehicle.

As a science fiction writer, I put characters in self-directed mini cars that don't require anything from the driver. Cars in my future tend to act like personal buses that you can take anywhere. The Grand Prix takes me half way there, but instead of giving me a little bit of control, I feel like I'm being teased: I'm almost really driving myself.

This car is red. It has a spoiler on the back that's so low I can't see it out of the sliver of rear window. A car like this, one would think, would roar to life and run wild. This car revs nicely, although the sound is a bit muted so I'm not sure it's behaving properly, but the power station takes half a second to put that power into the wheels, so the car behaves as if it's playing catch-

-up to the driver's will. It emphasizes the car's attitude of "neener-neener-neener."

On a scary note, the brakes seem to behave in the same way.

As I learned to drive, every car I had kept to a simple rule: red lights on the dashboard were bad. See a red light, pay attention because something is wrong. This car has a handy red light in the speedometer that causes repeated panics (as I was trained) only to find the "problem" is "MPH." I could change this to "KPH" if I felt like going metric (or to Canada).

When it gets dark enough, the dash lights up automatically. All in red. Where's the green I'm used to?

According to my sister-in-law, the back seat is rather boring. She's not a small child, but she cannot see out the windows.

So are there any advantages to driving this beast? Well, the boot is rather big, and the black interior is always warm but at least it's clean, but it is a rental car.

But this car has given me a clue about driving: We're becoming worse drivers because our cars are worse: they take away the experience of driving. I remember an ad for a luxury car that bragged that driving the car made you forget you were driving. This is a problem. We are a nation of distracted, cranky people anyway, too busy to drive because we're on the phone, and quick to temper because all those other jackholes get in our way and play their music so loud we can't hear our own. We don't need cars that take care of things for us. We need cars that demand our attention and deserve our love. We need cars that make us pay attention to the road. We don't need extra cup holders.

The Grand Prix has a problem I've seen with several cars lately: when driving, it's hard to tell where the car ends, because the aerodynamic styling of the hood hides the actual boundaries of the car, and the back end is a mystery. I would not want to parallel park this thing, because I can't see where it is. Instead of designing cars that give us this knowledge (and thus control) we waste our time and energy not in making cars efficient or lighter, but in rear-cameras and cars that can park themselves.

We're wasting our time with these gas-guzzling automatics.

On the geek side of things, cars are slowly learning to park themselves, steer themselves, turn lights into turns, and control the interior lights without human intervention. This is all very cool, but I'm finding the twilight time of real driving frustrating.

I hate it when I'm right

Sat, 03 May 2008 21:58:00 GMT

I'm going through my LJ tags, because I don't use them well, and only once or twice usually, and I came across this entry, dated August 13,
2007. To quote myself:

But I'm sure we'll see the Machiavelian devil return in the next election, advising the GOP front runner (who will gain Rove's help after the primary)

It's sad when cynicism is accurate.
So you should know Rove is advising McCain, unless you watch Fox news.

Another definition of science fiction

Sat, 03 May 2008 20:33:35 GMT

This come from Science Fiction by Adam Roberts (Routledge, 2000). Science fiction is fiction about changed realities where the change is explained through some mechanism. Thus: Frankenstein can be science fiction because the causes are explained (to a point). Cormac McCarthy's The Road is not because the change in the world is never explained. Kafka's Metamorphosis is not science fiction because the transformation is never explain (or indeed shown).
To be snarky, explaining things or putting them in a logical sense in the story is science fiction, ignoring this is not. To be overly-sensitive: SF readers are too stupid to take things for granted without cause.
Frankly, I think of science fiction in two ways: 1) The impact science has on people, and 2) People living with new or different science. I suppose the first is more obviously science fiction, and the second could be more "literary."
jaylakesaid something in the panel here at MHCC a few weeks ago about science fiction readers wanting to be transported to other worlds. The more I think about that, the more it makes sense. We're not looking for an emotional journey to share, but a full-immersion experience. To be counter-snarky, I could say people who read "literary" science fiction (stuff we recognize but isn't marketed that way) don't have the imagination to wade through the world building to find the emotional experience they long for.
This makes me think about writing, but I'll try to postpone those musings.
This may seem completely useless to talk about. After all, science fiction is prophetical, and the worlds we've envisioned as the most likely are becoming reality. And I'm left once again with the notion that this is a pointless musing. Story doesn't matter as much as good craft and art, the story telling skills are important.

The important thing: Stephanie is OK

Thu, 01 May 2008 03:57:54 GMT

The Infiniti, however, is not. Stephanie had an accident on the way home, and the end result is a crushed light and warped panel that makes it hard to open the door. It's a ten year old car. The chances of it being totaled are pretty high, I think. We may get enough to buy a used car with the payout.
I've already had one vehicle totaled in January. I don't need to lose this one.
My emergency backup Mazda was out of commission for two days last week from a dead battery. I've done the bus thing, and I'm not happy to go back to that life, but I may give in. I already calculated that whenever gas is more than $2.47 a gallon, the bus is cheaper. It's been more than a buck above that.
Sadly, I won't need to take the bus but four days a week, and it's not worth buying a monthly pass for just shy of $100 a month, so I'll be juggling tickets that have to be validated to get me to work. Naturally, the place where Stephanie drops me off downtown doesn't have working validators.
Is this what adulthood is all about, living with these inconveniences? Putting up with daily hassles and problems, and not complaining about it? Well, since I blog, I don't think I qualify as a non-complainer. It seems like there could be an easier or more reliable way to do things, but these things (like maintenance of ticket validators) isn't economical because most of the time you'd pay an employee to look for problems that aren't there.
I'm finding it difficult to cope with everything. I'm probably falling into depression again. I'm tired all the time lately. Unless someone replaced my coffee with decaf, I don't know what's going on with me.

Oh great LJ brain...

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:54:04 GMT

I have never worked as a tour guide, and I was wondering if anyone out there knew if tour guides have an in-joke term for the tourists they put up with. I imagine there would be. After all, in technical support we had "callers" who were "idiots," "morons," "jackasses," "New Yorkers," and "ID10T Errors." Does anyone know? Can you let me in on the secret?

Naturally, this is for a story, not because I want to go to Disneyland and act like I know their secrets.

Adventures in Public Transport

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:34:22 GMT

I killed another battery this weekend. We couldn't even jump the thing, so we took it to Les Schwab on Tuesday to have them look at it. The battery, at only four months old, was dead. Luckily this is Les Schwab we're dealing with, and they handed us a new battery, no charge.
In the meantime I had to take public transportation. Stephanie dropped me off downtown and I took the MAX train out to Gresham, where I sat backwards and listened to a couple of podcasts I'd been meaning to listen to. This was difficult because one guy three rows ahead of me was playing his music so loud, I couldn't hear my own without turning up the volume to dangerous levels. Stephanie came to get me on Tuesday, and then we took the battery in.
Wednesday I had the same trip out, but without the "music" from other people. The ticket validators weren't working, so I rode out to Gresham hoping the fare inspectors didn't come along. I put in my All-Zone ticket after the transfer for a nine-minute ride.

I had to ride home on my own.
Now I remember why I don't like the bus. For some reason, Tri-Met's ride finder is inefficient. Instead of finding a way to get me to the train to go across town, it recommended I take the bus all the way in, transfer to another bus for a couple of blocks, then get on another bus that passes my home. I skipped the middle bus, went one stop further on the first bus, walked two blocks, and caught the bus home on an earlier route than their trip planner gave me.
That's when the "joy" started.
When you get on the bus they give you a transfer. There is a day code that looks fairly random (I'm sure to make it harder to save transfers and ride for free) but the day code on my morning ticket was the same as the day code on my return ticket, until I transferred to the last bus, where the driver insisted the day code on my ticket was wrong, and that I only got it an hour before didn't matter. He trusted me, though, and gave me a good ticket.
So I have no idea if I broke a TriMet rule or not.
The ride home was too loud to listen to anything but the ex-prisoner behind me talk about his plans to repay back taxes. Why do people on cell phones talk louder than everyone else? The seats are small, designed for maximum butt-pain, and squeezing people together you have no choice but to become engaged to them to make the lack of privacy easier.

Thankfully, the car started with the new battery.

Free Fiction

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:36:25 GMT

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day is on us once again. As I have not sold anything that I have the rights to, I opted to share a piece I wrote in 2004 but cannot, for obvious reasons, publish.

So read my offering: Precious

Writing lesson proof of concept (call for participation)

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:06:25 GMT

One of my projects is a book on writing. This is a nice project to store cool warm-ups and techniques. I thought of this one the other day and thought I'd pass it through the great LJ brain.

Every basic acting class I've taken has started with an exercise to say something simple (usually "Ah" or "Oh") and express as many emotions as possible. The voice's tools are inflection, speed, volume, breathiness, rhythm, and a bunch of stuff I've forgotten. The goal, in a classroom setting, is to get different expressions without duplication.

Thinking along these lines, and knowing writers don't have those tools, I thought this could be an interesting way to look at craft. Writers and actors have words, but writers don't have inflection, speed, volume, or any of that. What we have are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, phrases, and other tools. A simple descriptive phrase, such as "The wind blew through the trees" can evoke any mood in the hands of a master.

The goal: Evoke mood or foreshadow an event in a paragraph. Aim for no more than 100 words of prose, maybe. The preceding paragraph is 73 words long for reference. The action of the paragraph is

The wind blew through the trees.

Any changes are acceptable as long as the action is the same. Change the verb. Change the noun. Add to the tree. Describe the reaction of the trees. Try it in present tense, past tense, future tense, I don't care. Evoke mood.

However, don't tell anyone what the mood is, but let other readers react to the written word and describe what mood they felt when reading the passage.

In a classroom setting, I wouldn't want the participants to read their stuff, because the tone of voice can give it away. The goal is to get it all on the page using specific word choices.

Anyone want to play? Please do.

Thanks everyone

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:44:49 GMT

Last night we had a lively discussion with jaylake , davidlevine, newroticgirl, camillealexa, David Goldman, and myself. The audience consisted of one co-worker, two wives of panelists, and one student, who took copious notes. I don't think she got the joke when Jay told here there would be a quiz.

the_child entertained us with a mural on the white board, part of which Jay has already shared.

Today four of us read. Amy read "What Becomes of Kings," her WotF sale, Camille read from her upcoming story "Flaming Marshmallows and other Deaths", David read "Tale of the Golden Eagle" from his forthcoming collection, and I read "The Simple Life" from the latest Aoife's Kiss.

For this, we got four staff members and three students, which peaked student participation in National Library Week.

Today at work

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:07:40 GMT

For some reason, the college chose to celebrate Earth Day today with an outdoor festival: live bands (what I call Noisefest), henna artists plying their trade, bike shops and radio stations vying for attention, and hopefully someone remembered to put out enough recycling containers. They do all of this outside and downstairs from the library, so all we hear is "thump thump thump pause thump thump thump pause" and eventually if one ventures outside one discovers other instruments being played and even someone in front of mic doing something that produces a mumbling noise barely heard over the guitars and keyboards.
I thought I escaped it, until I came home and read this comic.

My Atari can be a full body workout now

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:58:06 GMT

I want this. I haven't the room, but I want it.

Thoughts on writing time

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:16:16 GMT

In the writing class I took last term, the first thing we did was search for optimal writing time. I tried writing at various times, and realized that I can write any time of day, in different locations, once I get into the flow.
Tonight, the flow was hard to find. As part of an experiment I'm getting daily prompts and am expected to write a minimum of 250 words. That's easy. My smallest wordcount in the first four days was 364. Once I go, I go.
The problem is getting going. I didn't start until after Stephanie left for an evening meeting, but I didn't manage to pull it off. I played video games for an hour. I hope it's my tiredness, and the video games, but I just do not want to write any more tonight. I gave my prompt 20 minutes and managed a very incomplete story.
I am so close to finishing my current WIP I can taste it. I just can't bear to look at the words.
So, I think I need some more ritual to put myself into the writing mood, and I really think after 7 is a bad time for me. My desk is also uncomfortable. I need a chair that doesn't lean back, but hey, that's just an excuse. I have a kneeling chair I could use, I just have to rearrange.
But a ritual may help. I have a small fountain near my desk that I didn't start tonight. I don't have my tea or my water, and no music. Soundtracks help me write, I think. And looking at my desk I see it's getting bad. Two dishes, a banana peel, extra printer paper, a palm pilot, my Hipster PDA, a pencil, digital voice recorder, and several CDs litter my workspace. Too many distractions. I think I'll put a pillow in the back of my chair to help me sit up properly, and I'm already increasing the font size of my browser. In Word, I usually have my 12pt Courier enlarged 180%. I think there's an optimal angle size for a letter to be comfortably read on a screen, and most websites look way too small lately.
All I want to do is sleep, so I think I'll have a go at that.

Good night.

Taxes #$#@!

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:15:30 GMT

Once again we discover that we owe over $2000 in taxes. We are penalized for underpayment throughout the year, because 5 out of 6 of Stephanie's employers don't withhold anything, and living paycheck to paycheck, it's a bitch to save 25% of that monthly income for future taxes.
We have just enough in the bank to cover this month's expenses. What we have to pay is more than we make in a month, and apparently that is pre-tax.

So once again we fell completely screwed over. The tax "rebate" won't help, as it will be too little, too late, and probably taxable at some disgustingly high rate anyway next year.

I will try to stop complaining. There is little we can do about it.

But it would be nice if I could get some help figuring out a good way to keep track of my writing business expenses in a tax-friendly way. I use Quicken to keep track of things. Does the mighty LJ-brain have any suggestions on accurate accounting tips? I already claim con costs as a business expense, as well as postage costs, and parking at cons. Can I claim meals at cons, or my writing group costs? I used to claim mileage for driving to Eugene once a week, but I don't take the trip anymore, so I don't deduct it.

Any help?

Strange Phone Call

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:45:09 GMT

We came home from church to find a message. We played it and at first it sounded like someone called us and just let the phone broadcast a conversation. We could hear voices and rustling, but nothing clear. I had images of The Ring or something, a random phone call that if we listen to all of it we will have seven days to live or something.
Eventually I recognized the warbling bass line to a hymn. A familiar hymn. One we sang this morning. Score one point to the creepy stalker images going through our heads. Then I realized we were listening to "The King of Love My Shepherd Is."
I had taken our cell phone out of my pocket to make sure the ringer was off. At some point after that, it called home and left five minutes of rehearsal on our answering machine, until the machine filled up and hung up.
Stephanie figured out how to kill the random voice activation thing. It's bad enough we get 45 pictures of the inside of my pocket a week. We don't need this thing calling us (or anyone else) at random. Our government is spying on us enough as it is. We don't need cell phones contributing to the invasion.

The economic "stimulus" "rebate"

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:44:39 GMT

This is NOT mine. I got it from my boss who appears to be forwarding it from someone else:

How to use your rebate...

As you may have heard, the Bush Administration said each and every one of us will get a nice rebate.

If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China.

If we spend it on gasoline it will all go to the Arabs.

If we purchase a computer it will all go to India.

If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will all go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala.

If we purchase a good car it will all go to Japan.

If we purchase useless crap it will all go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy.

We need to keep that money here in America.

The only way to keep that money at home is to buy beer & Jack Daniels, since those are apparently the only businesses still thriving in the US.

On a serious note, one of my co-workers added:

go to the farmers market and buy local real food

shop at the V.A. second hand store where all profits go directly to fund social programs such as Big Brother

instead of using the computer to communicate- talk

and always buy Oregon wine (it is cheaper and keeps our land free of sprawling developments)

These are good ideas. Sadly, I suspect most of the rebates they spread around will go to paying off debts, all the while creating a bigger debt for the US government (Steph's observation).

And remember, if you do get a rebate check, and you don't make 100K a year, thank the Democrats for fighting for you on this one. Shrub didn't want money to go to poor people.

Spec Fic Panel and Reading for National Library Week

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:15:31 GMT

The Mt. Hood Community College library is gearing up for National Library Week next week. All the events are in the Bob Scott Room, which is in the corner of the library. Here's a list of events:

Mon., April 14, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.

History of the Mt. Hood Community College Library: bring your lunch and listen to presenter Patti Allen describe our library’s evolution.

Tue., April 15, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.

Poetry Open Mic: come read your own original poetry or share your favorite poem, or just eat your lunch and listen to the poems.

Wed., April 16, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.

Read a Banned Book Today!: bring your lunch and listen to presenter Beth Wood discuss banned books, censorship, and your right to read.

Thurs., April 17, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Science Fiction Discussion Panel: chaired by Josh English, local authors discuss current issues in science fiction writing.

Fri., April 18, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.

Science Fiction Reading: bring your lunch and listen to local writers read from their science fiction and fantasy works.

Any Portland Metro spec fic folks who want to participate, feel free to drop me a line here in comments or through an LJ message. If you just want to show up and heckle, we'd love to have you.

Back in some sort of saddle

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:26:24 GMT

We spent our day off tackling a few things around the house. We cleared off some space around my desk and moved the iMac to the filing cabinet next to Steph's desk, and took a field trip to Fry's to get a USB keyboard for the laptop. The desk has a great keyboard tray and it's uncomfortable typing on the work surface. Athough I really can if I need to. It's not bad, but I have to lean over everything, and keep my feet curled under my chair. And one of the chairs I plan on using in here is an ergonomic kneeler, so I won't be able to lean over safely.
It looks like I managed to get everything set up in here, and with the desk cleared off, I can work with the illusion of an organized and clean space. As soon as I turn my head I see mess, which is only incentive to buy blinders. I have to solve the lighting problem still. My desk faces the corner, but the room's overhead light is right in the middle of the ceiling, and this screen doesn't react well. It won't be much of a problem, and we have enough task lighting in this room I can get background light easy enough.
But I have a lot more cleaning to do around here. And maybe eat dinner.

Peace out.

Mall

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 04:30:45 GMT

A mall is easily dismissed as a temple of consumerism, cathedrals to the money god that rules our lives, but the mall is more than that. Modern Americans insists on living in the same city as every other American, only in different states. Or at least we are satisfied with what the merchant class (which is only a form of business class save they occasionally produce something useful) offers us.
The modern American mall is a slice of California; the only acceptable accent in a mall is Valley. Malls are the great equalizers for the metropolises. Cities no longer have to play that all-time favorite suburb game "keeping up with the Joneses". Look, we have a Crate & Barrel, too. We've arrived. As if this is a worthwhile destination. Whatever makes your town unique will never be found in a mall. If your mall has a store that is locally owned and operated and not a chain, another copy of that store, also locally owned and operated and not a chain, will exist in the other malls in America.
If we could, through the tricks of quantum physics, connect every mall to every other mall through the hub of a Platonic Ideal Mall, travel across the country would be effortless, assuming you can remember in which state you parked your car. The mall strips away civic identity.
The scariest place in America is a silent mall. Imagine being there, alone, free of the crowds and kiosks, free from the inoffensive music that would bother everyone if they could hear it, the benches clear of groups of people recovering from one store before braving the next. Just you, neon, skylights, and the echo of your heart pounding. It is quite an unnatural place, and there is never any good food.
I found myself in a mall tonight, walking around for half an hour while waiting for a table at one of those restaurants where the number of menu choices is inversely proportional to the quality of the food, but sadly not the price. The mall does have one convenience: They put all the crap nobody needs in one place, making it easier (in theory) to avoid a bunch of useless crap and clothes I am not skinny or cool enough to wear (assuming I want some brand name embroidered on my chest or butt). The jewelry stores are all the same. The lingerie stores are all the same. This mall I wandered through couldn't have been a very good one: it only had two Starbucks. I suspected that I was in an entirely different mall for a while, because I could no longer tell the difference.
Dinner was. Any adjectives would be attaching more to the meal than the best fabulist can do. I had never encountered a menu with page numbers before, but they probably wouldn't have been necessary except every other page was an advertisement. If I want a bulky menu that runs several pages, at least half of them should be a wine list. I consumed calories. If they made an effort they might have reached flavor.
The decor attempted at that 'old world' look which only comes off as giant mold patches on the walls, because everything around it is so shiny, the place can't be old. It didn't have charm and atmosphere so much as the feeling that as a diner, I was on a production line of some sort.
I could have stepped out into any Mall in America in my stupor, and wouldn't have noticed.
The thing that really surprises me, but only on the surface, is the evolution of the mall: The shopping village. A mall where the store owners have to pony up for the building mantenance. We have one here in Portland. Yes, the rainy northwest has an outdoor mall, with even trendier stores than the mall. I know they're trendier, because their commercials are even more mind-numbingly offensive.

Onynimity

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:19:05 GMT

jaylake asks a question I've wanted to ask, but never did. I answered there, but thought I would repeat it all here.
When I started LJ, I went the onymous route because I wanted to be open about myself, as I saw this as my eventual professional blog.

I almost went for polymath or opsimath , but they were taken but not used.
My older blogs are worse:
Concientia et Sapientia: Knowledge and Wisdom, the pretentious way I saw my life back when. I chose the host name "rejectamenta" because that's really how I saw my life. I still do, to some extent. rejectamenta was another LJ option I wanted but couldn't get.
Arjan Tales: Was my original writing blog, but as Jay once said to me in a critique, I could almost hear dice rolling in the background, and I wanted to write more than my Tunnels and Trolls adventures.
Cutting Edge Theology: The name of a reading series I hoped to continue on the web.
Job Hunt Follies: My journey through grad school and the job search.
liberatinged: another failed project at promoting freedom through education.

I broke up my journals into several different titles and sites because blogger didn't support tagging, and I thought it would be better to organize everything by topic. With tagging on LJ, I didn't worry about making that choice. Now I have to use tags with intent.

By using an onymous journal, people have to deal with all of me, but it also means I have to be very careful about my web presence.

Baseball is back

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:54:44 GMT

In order to reduce my productivity, today is Opening Day, which is a bit of a holiday in my house. Keeping score, hot dogs, chips, Pepto Bismol (tm), the usual stuff.
As always, I am optimistic about the Mariners' chances, but after three innings against the Rangers, it's one-nothing and our pitcher is getting beat up, so--as always--I'm prepared to toss the whole season.
Arg.
Patience is not my strong suit.
Especially when it comes to my team.

There'll never be another Beatles

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:27:23 GMT

The Bobs were back in town on Thursday. Bob Malone opened for them again, and I really like Malone, but I don't listen to his style of music all that often. I'm an a cappella fan. The Bobs pulled off fourteen songs, all but three off their latest album "Get Your Monkey Off My Dog." They sounded tinny for some reasion, and while the two drunken idiots who normally show up at Portland Bobs concerts didn't show up (thankfully), the relaxed attitude on stage and the intimate stage of Mississippi Studios leads to the audience trying to be part of the show. I can't say we avoided temptation. Matthew quipped "what were we about to sing?" and we (as well as a couple of other people) shouted the song title.
It was a good show, but we've seen the Bobs so much, the show is familiar, the music is familiar, but I'll keep going to their shows, because they're still the tops in my book.
We picked up a copy of Amy's new solo album Not Going To Be Pretty. Since I don't listen to "modern popular" music, I was surprised at how much the album sounded like the stuff I listened to in the 80's. One track in particular ("Idaho") made me think of Suzanne Vega's Solitude Standing, which I still like, and wish I could find a cheap way to convert from LP to MP3. But Amy's album, with marvelous poetry in the lyrics, wasn't musically different from my high school memories.
I had two conflicting thoughts about this. One, I wondered if popular music was in decline, or if there simply hadn't been anything new in music in decades. Besides the Bobs and what they did to a cappella, that is. Bob Malone, singing to his solo piano playing, reminds me of Billy Joel's early work. Amy Engelheardt reminds me of Suzanne Vega.
That led to my second thought. Maybe that level of musicianship has stayed where it is despite the effects of rap and hip-hop (which I think have degraded musicianship somewhat) and the Disneyfication of pop music. There is good music out there, music I think I'd like if I opened myself to it, but I don't.
All of this is tempered by the fact that I grew up listening to the Beatles, even though I was a post-Beatle baby. I grew up on the music that changed rock and roll and pop music, so that's "normal" music to me. Has anyone changed rock and pop like they have? I think the Bobs are the only group that changed, and they succeeded by not following standard a cappella standard vocal jazz arrangements, but sang like they were playing guitars. Watching Amy sing the electric guitar solo in Cream's "White Room" is a treat. If they bring "Purple Haze" back into their lineup, I expect her to set a microphone on fire.
Maybe I shouldn't have expected something drastic and new out of Amy's album. After all, Richard Greene's Low? Bottom? Me? is instrumented in the same way, and it's also a good album, and the last non-ac album I bought was Lia Delaria's Double Standards, so I'm just not into the music scene.
Anyway, the short of it: buy more music from good artists, even the independent ones.