fingers

A dream that comes back in snippets occasionally - about fingers. Five of them (ok, 4 and a thumb). I'm walking through Home Depot, for some reason looking behind a shelf/display, and seeing 5 severed fingers just sitting there on top of an old spool of wire. The spool is dusty, but the fingers are fresh (but not oozing, which is clearly a continuity problem in my dream). There's no one around, so I pick them up, thinking "someone is gonna need these"

From there, I wander around the store, 5 non-oozing fingers in my hand, sometimes doing my shopping along the way, not trying to conceal the fingers, but I recognize how disturbing it might be for people to see severed fingers in a fellow shopper's hand. The thing is, I don't have a speck of self-consciousness in this... I'm ok with the fact that I have someone else's fingers in my hand. I came by them honestly, and I mean to do good by them. It's just kinda weird that they were just left there. You'd think someone would care about them more.

One "dream symbolism" site says: "To dream that your fingers are injured or have been chopped off, denotes your anxieties about your ability to accomplish some demanding task or perform in some waking situation." and "To see a wire in your dream, symbolizes your short but frequent journeys. To see old or rusty wire in your dream, signifies your bad temper." and "To see a spool in your dream, symbolizes your need for order and structure. Things need to be neat." And if I paid attention to horoscopes and other malarkey, I would say "[shrug] well, 2 out of 3 ain't all that wrong"

... but see, they're not my fingers. Is it a conservation thing? (trying to clean up a little and just waiting to walk past a garbage can) It is anxieties about someone unknown to me? (someone else's fingers)

Or is it just weird middle-of-the-night meanderings of my brain? It's not lost on me that there seems to have been product placement/branding in my dream. Who put that in there?

print media vs. bloggage - now I understand...

I've often been puzzled by the enthusiasm over the past few years - I mean, bloggers as a news source? Are you kidding me? I mean, seriously folks... who is kidding who? When boneheads like me can do something as silly as what is essentially composing an email to themselves (and then, in a fit of narcissism, showing the whole world), how seriously can you take it?

I was a hold out for the vaunted prestige of print journalism... until about 5 minutes ago. You see, I thought "These folks have the momentum of professionalism behind them - careers, printing presses, advertisers... the whole shebang. Surely they know what they're doing." Well, that was until today during my morning constitutional. I was reading a copy of Road Magazine that I picked up from a newsstand. I'll admit, I was enticed by the glossy shiny bike porn pictures. But when you actually read it, they have 8th graders writing the articles and interviews. Seriously. For a magazine that must pay gobs of money for the photos (and I'll admit, they're pretty damn good photos indeed), you'd think they would actually read what they're writing and realize how tepid, dry, and inane it is. If I want short, declarative sentences that describe nothing, I'll read Hemingway.

And this is when I realized that the Rise of the Blog is not necessarily because of its innate superiority, but more because most print media has set the bar so low.

At least some rags have decent online writing. And for the fun about dudes and dudettes riding bikes, it's Smithers, Vanderpoop, et. al. I might not live anywhere near Cali, but that Vanderhoot, he sure is fun to read.

And to make matters worse, the evening news no longer contains actual news - just crime, disaster, and scandal, followed by sports and weather (translated into emotional responses in the viewer of "be afraid, be afraid, be afraid, buy things you don't need, take an umbrella"). The same seems to be true of local newspapers. Every Monday, the Ann Arbor News newspaper delivery boy delivers free copies on my doorstep to try to get me to subscribe. It's the local rag, but it's a crappy paper (and I'm annoyed by the litter on my doorstep). The Detroit News and Free Press aren't much better. Where are the decent local newspapers? The Chicago Tribune ain't exactly local, but it's midwestern and decent. It might be in for some changes though... And going out to either the East or West Coast for news obviously is problematic in the context of "local".

Ok, damn, I'm blathering. Blue skies outside. Good time for a long ride.

Daywatch

Coming in June... part 2 of the Nightwatch trilogy - Daywatch. If you didn't catch Nightwatch and are a fan of the epic-battle-between-good-and-evil set-in-a-modern-day-shoot-em-up with-cool-soundtrack-and-reluctant-hero type of movie, you should definitely check out Nightwatch. Getcha started, ya know?

(of course, the whole "Chalk of Destiny" thing sounds a little too much like Bulletproof Monk or Tenacious D, but I'll give the Russians the benefit of the doubt and see it anyway)

to save or not to save

A weekend that includes spring cleaning, and the pile of mail that I have ignored for the past week or two. Among them, a thank you card for a wedding gift. For about two seconds, I pondered "is this something people save?" I'm genetically predispositioned to packrat-itis, but there's a rudely pragmatic and non-sentimental streak in me too - so bad that I had to be put in my place once by a friend-in-law who witnessed me disposing of a birthday card she sent me a few weeks previous. My reasoning: "why should I hold onto a $2.50 card that just has 'Hope you have a great one!' in it? I mean... the sentiment is nice, but I feel no emotional connection to this card" Her objection: "well don't do it in front of me..." (ok, I learned my lesson, I'm a tactless nob)

The thank you card at least had two sentences in it by way of thank you, but it went in the trash anyway. As much as I love my paper shredder though, I didn't shred it. 'Cause that would just be callous.

I fingure I have to draw the line somewhere.

road trip...

Haven't been out of town in a while (ok, a couple weeks). The summer has a finite duration. I, like all living organisms, will eventually die.

Put all of those things together, and the appropriate action is to hit the road and see more of the world now, while I can. I went to Minneapolis-St. Paul to visit with Fred and Mona about a year ago, so how 'bout going there again? Go riding the hilly bits with Fred before going out to Cali for Death Ride.

Sounds like a plan. I'm a-lookin' forward to it.

Now, all I've got to do is hope Matthew and Sandra bought a similar house out in Portland (similar in that they're enlisting manslaves to lift and tote and scrape paint and move furniture and such) so that I can have an excuse to road trip out that way and fuss around in Portland.

... is/does not _____

They lend themselves to cliches, so I write them down. Sometimes, I even type them... these things, they creep into my head and somehow I manage not to say them aloud. I'm still pretty lucky about keeping them inside my head - I haven't said them to the people I thought them at.

Having Seniority does not mean necessarily having Skills.

Being there is not the same as working.

Training is not the same as education.

Education is not the same as intelligence.

Education is not the same as creativity.

Keep saying "not my job"... eventually none of them will be.

How I Luvs My Glasses (or...How Spring Vegetation Makes You Pretty)

Went for a long ride in the dirt, and while there's a certain amount of hassle with getting gear together and into the car to go out to the good trails, I discovered today that the eyewear I was hating on the road (the bottom of the frames really get in the way of looking over my shoulder), I'm lovin' on 'em today.

Ok, maybe it doesn't look bad now, but when I came down the hill and around the bend, got clocked in the face with a surprise branch and it wrapped around my neck before ripping away, I was a little surprised at how easily I bled. It was just a branch and leaves, fer cryin' out loud.

Thus is the story about how I'm so happy with having eyewear. I still have both my eyes, neither collected any twigs along the way, and they still function quite well, thank you very much.

weekend movie review

Saw a couple movies/talkies over the weekend - only one good.

Fast Food Nation: blech.
Gerg Kinnear is a funny guy, and the fast food shenanigans amuse, but you saw everything you needed to see in the trailer when the exchange goes "...and the fecal coliform counts are off the charts. Do you know what that means?" "uhm.. not really" "There's shit in the meat."

Spiderman 3: another stinker. Just waaayyy too preachy with the "revenge is not the solution" and "we all have the capacity for good or evil, and it's up to you to choose" messages. And even though he's part of the baby-faced white-boy twink trio (along with Jake "I can't quit you" Gyllenhaal and Elijah "someone take this ring from me" Wood), Tobey MacQuire just isn't that interesting to watch. The transition between good/evil spiderman was fairly lame and he didn't sell it worth crap. And all the silliness with side mini plots took way too much time.

The Last King of Scotland: The one redeeming spark in the weekend. Forrest Whittaker rocks. And that Idi Amin? Big-time nutjob, lemme tell ya. Just go see the movie. If you don't know much about him, check out the Wikipedia entry for him first. The bit about deciding on his title cracks me up: "His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular" The saddest part of it all - the people of Uganda celebrate his rise to power after his coup against Obote... and the echoes of other celebrations of the vicious-dictator-after-vicious-dictator cycles of coup in African/South American countries. I'd wail to the skies "when will we learn!?", but we ain't quite learned in this country on not repeating mistakes, so it's not like it's anything not seen before.

burf.

Did some ridin' today... but none of the normal roadie hoosey.

Met up with G to go ride some of the unofficial trails out on the east end of AA - basically public or Uni land that people have walked/rode on enough that they turn deer trails into human-passable trails. Some of it might technically be... uhm... without invitation for the landowner... but I can't imagine, other than maybe stumbling on a meth lab, that anyone would care. Of course, if we strayed onto the golf course, we'd probably be shot on sight, 'cause you know how those golfers get about people that don't ascribe to latest fashion. Anyway, a little sunshine, a little muck (still a little squishy down by the river), but a good time for a couple hours.

Then she scooted off to a musical extravapalooza with the family, friends, and neighbors, and I caught up with Pete downtown for a smoothie, a coffee, and then to go to my first Ann Arbor alleycat race. Now, while I don't really identify with the bullhorn-brigade fixie hipsters, a bike is a bike, and were all just a bunch of kiddies on two wheels havin' some funs. Me, I was caffeinated and chompin' at the bit for the go-go-go. I was still on the knobby bike, and when I paid in and got the map with checkpoints, realized that it would be a total pavement non-stair-jumping kind of a thing. With 30 minutes to go before the start, I scootched home, swapped out the dirty bike for the road bike, and came back. This particular event was of the out-and-back to checkpoint (4 times) variety, which, while I enjoyed it, might have preferred a looped or meshed or more interpretive/creative checkpoint distribution. Where choices of route are more up to the individual, and can make/break your time. Of course, the checkpoints were all along decent roads, most with bike lanes, so that was nice for safety, but heck, proper lane usage and complete stops at signs ain't exactly one of the biggest priorities in one of these kinds of things, knowhahumsayin?

So now you're wondering: "so... how'd you do?" Dismal. I blame... myself. On the way back from the first checkpoint, I did a stupid cut through a parking lot, had to get up a curb in a tight spot, and burfed it pretty hard, pinch-flatting the rear. I had a tube, but no pump. So now this basically turns into a brevet for me. I'm walking/jogging back the last mile from the checkpoint to home base, scouring my brain for bike shops around here (yeah, at 5:30 on a Saturday?) or gas stations. No dice. But, I go back to home base, and decide I'll ride the flat [gently, please] about 5-6 blocks to a gas station that might have air. Change the tube, and off I go. 2nd checkpoint and back, and then my stupidity kicked in. Tried a shortcut in a part of town I don't know well and overshot the turn, ending up on Plymouth instead of Broadway. Had to go way out of my way, and deal with hills I shouldn't have needed to, adding to my failings.

Never the less, there was the last checkpoint, the jam to the finish line BBQ, and a solidly mediocre middle-of-the-results finish. Pissed about my mechanical, bio-mechanical, and navigational stupidities, but was cranked up on endorphins by the finish, so all happy-go-lucky. Some grilled meat and salty chips later, yackety-yack with fellow riders, and all a good time.

Pete smoked me, by the way - and on his coaster-brake Schwinn cruiser. His knowledge of Arb shortcuts, other navigational oddities, and robustness of steed won him a nice 6th. That, and he's a gonzo badass who has a bunnyhop on that cruiser that... shit... I'm still in awe of. Tip o' the cap you, Herr Peter VonGonzo.

Alberto/Ollie/middle east, hate crimes, and seatbelts

I don't normally wax political, but I just can't resist.

A couple weeks ago, when Gonzales was testifying that he "can't recall" this, and "can't recall" that... surely the connection to the Ollie North testimony during Iran-Contra isn't lost. Didn't Ollie sort of have to fall on his sword on that one? How come Gonzo isn't? (I love this picture of Gonzo and Dubya, btw. All it really needs to complete the train is Cheney pulling Dubya's strings as Dubya manipulates Gonzo's.)

But wait... Iran-Contra? Wasn't Ollie selling weapons to the same country that Dubya is now saber-rattling with? And back a couple decades ago, wasn't there a significantly cozier relationship between Bush (41st) and Saddam Hussein? And now look at it... they just can't be friends anymore. Not to dig at a sore spot, but back when Afghanistan was all Soviet-ized and the U.S. was messing around with the Mujahideen to tinker with their government against the U.S.S.R., we found out 20 years later that it came back to bite us in the ass.

Call me crazy, but why the hell do we keep getting involved with countries/revolutions/cultures that we don't really understand? (By involved, I mean that in the teasing, flirting, no-strings-attached, "I promise I'll respect you in the morning if you just let me stick it in a little" kind of 'involved') And even worse, when it's nowhere ear a balanced relationship - culturally, economically, militarily, etc. Sure, we're all gushy over happy relations with Vietnam these days, but I don't see N. Korea being our friends any time soon. I really wonder what's kind of messed-up shenanigans are going on in Africa right now that we're going to hear about in 10-20 years. Maybe are we backing some rebels right now against some government, and along the way those rebels become brutal dictators themselves? Shee-it.
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And as the House passes the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, Dubya suddenly is making noises about keeping his veto pen warmed up? What the hell... the guy hasn't vetoed a damn thing in the first 6 years, and now all of a sudden he's poo-pooing everything that comes his way. Could this possibly be just to distract from all the other BS that seems to be falling down around his administration? Or is this just a last-ditch method of exerting republican legislative control - that the republicans can't control what's going on in Congress, but since democrats don't have a supermajority, the veto is still a potent tool to avoid actually having to communicate across the aisle in Congress.
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And it gives me great pleasure to hear NJ Gov. Corzine apologizing to his constituents for not wearing a seat belt in the crash that put some serious hurt on him. Sure, he was being driven by a NJ State Trooper, and troopers get lots of driving training, but still - no one is invulnerable. The thing that's most remarkable? Corzine broke ribs and legs and ended up on a ventilator. His driver, the trooper that was seatbelted, basically walked away from the accident with cuts and bruises. Of course, a trooper and governor getting into an accident driving 90 mph kind of adds to the whole notion of setting a bad example. It's not like they were trying to flee from paparazzi or anything.

randoms

In my non-posting-for-a-while, little things been building up... like the recent book club selection The Brief History of the Dead, which, though initially promising, was ultimately disappointing. Too many concepts not fleshed out. Too many suspensions of disbelief required. Too many ideas included when they were only fleeting distractions and would've better been left out. I did like the cover art though, which reminded me of an "empty coat" sculpture at the Walker Art Center sculpture garden... which is, by the way, a pretty damn nice place. I wish there were more sculpture gardens in the world. Especially in the world near where I live, dammit.

My folks live near the Skokie Northshore Sculpture Park and it's pretty nifty to have something like that right in the neighborhood. Especially since it essentially is re-purposing land-fill-ish land that borders one of the sanitary canals (er... I mean "water reclamation district"). When I was a kid, it was just this crappy stretch next to the canal. Now it's a perfect place for a post-dinner walk. Except of course, that I don't live there any more. That's a bummer.

And lastly, while rummaging about in some old photos, I came across this little gem... (if you're squeamish, probably best not to look at the full-sized photo). Kind of wacky, that a bird would get caught like that. I mean... it's not like the bridge is moving fast or anything. Not like the bridge can deviate from its course... Slow and ponderous river-spanning monstrosity, but somehow this avian dumbass managed to get killed by... a bridge. It probably better for the survival of the species that this one won't get to breed any more. A pigeon-ey kind of Darwin Award.

my new weight-loss plan

Get sick. Don't eat for 2 days.

It's really that simple.

I went to the doc after my sore throat and body ache didn't go away, and yup, it's official: streptococcal whatchamohoosey. But on the way in, I got my stats taken and when I stepped on the scale I thought... "hey, that's not right - that's my butt nekkid weight, not my shoes + keys + clothes + whatever weight". Well, that's what you get for not eating. Not that I'm gonna miss the 5 or so pounds or anything, but it's not like it's gonna stay off once I'm feeling better.

On the downside, I'm really pissed that I missed a couple days of killer sunny Michigan spring weather while I was inside laying in bed in feverish pain. But, I'm glad I now have drugs that will make me non-infectious, and healthy to boot. And apologies to anyone I might have unknowingly infected over the past week. Sore throat? Go get you some antibiotics.