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.

Flandis sounding kinda weak

so said Floyd:

This is yet another in a series of malicious actions by USADA that tramples my right to have my case heard in fair and just way... I’m infuriated by the behavior of USADA and the LNDD. Together, they have turned this proceeding into a full-scale attack on my civil rights and a mockery of justice.

... persecution complex, anyone?

It's not your civil rights that are being attacked, buster. You're engaged in business arbitration. You haven't been arrested or charged with a crime, bound into slavery, or been prejudged based on race, gender, religion... you've been accused of cheating in a competition. There's a difference. I for one really hope he didn't do it, not because I care about Floyd, but because I want cycling to be a clean(er) sport (than it seems these days).

I do indeed hope the USADA arbitration comes quickly so this can go to the CAS... and then it'll be over. How much possible flailing about can there possibly be over a couple of cups of piss? Test it, confirm it, guard against error and fraud and technician bias... these are not difficult concepts.

post-bonk Orange-gasm

What is it about oranges these days? I am obsessed. Some days, I have 4 or 5 of 'em. And when I eat them, it's not pretty. It's an orgy of sweet juicy orange pleasure. I can't imagine what I look like (an expression of crazed mania? a dark and predatory glare? glorious and thankful delight?) but I know that I don't know how I seem. All my attention is on the orange. And how quickly I can shuck the rind and get it stuffed into my pie-hole. Like pistachios - the rate-limiting step is the peeling more than anything.

Take today for example. I rode the Waterloo route this afternoon, and even though I took food and tried to eat smart on the way (yes, I've run out of gas on that route before), I still bonked and suffered the last 15 miles. But when I got home, eyes dry and burning, I was all about the oranges. 1 was good. 2 was better. 3 was damn fine. I had to stop myself because it tripped my "this might be a bad thing when it goes too easy and too quickly" sensor.

In other news - I was on the way back home on HRD and I passed what looked like the Tuesday AAVC group ride heading out. It was nice to see tons of folks out rollin' along, but I'm thinking that 30-35 people bunched up is not exactly a good way to go. Sure, take your space on the road and roll strong in traffic, but with that big of a group, on that 2-lane, no-shoulder/no-escape-route, potholed-and-cold-patched road? Safer to split up a bit, don't you think? When the bunch is 4-abreast in a random diamondy shape, when cars pass... maybe they're gunning it? Kinda makes it sketchy for whoever is riding on the left side, no? I'm just sayin'. Bigger than 20 people: maybe split it up. Now if only the route would change by 3 blocks to avoid that dude in Dexter who yells at everyone rolling through that stop sign. Or, maybe just change the route to avoid rolling through the stop sign to begin with? Call me crazy...

Everything Falls Apart

... and no, I'm not talking about the Hüsker Dü song (but thems some fine, fine tunes that I haven't listened to in a long damn while).

Everything is just... falling apart. Yesterday I was utterly incapacitated by what I thought was food poisoning. Basically, I was unable to stand or walk for most of the day in between the 7 vomit and 4 diarrhea episodes. (how do you count it when you have to puke in the wastebucket because you're still sitting on the toilet? Count one each? Count it by who got there first? Or by volume?). I recently on a lark bought a raw honey spread, and thinking it might be food poisoning, called my county health department to report it. The kind and understanding health professional suggested that my symptoms sounded more like Norovirus than food poisoning. (and apparently there's a Farmington strain too! Named for Farmington Hills! right here in Michigan! how proud we all must be...[sigh])

Since I'm much better now, I'm guessing it was the virus, but I'm not having any unpasteurized anything any time soon. I do like Louis Pasteur and his invention. I think it has saved a lot of people from pain and early death. Not only did he develop/refine the germ theory of disease but he discovered chirality too. How frickin' cool is that? I LOVE that. So to all you raw-milk-drinkin' "cherry-juice-is-a-cure-for-cancer" homeopathy crazy-talkers: keep that crazy talk at home. I got no tolerance for ya, and if you start in with it, I'm gonna share my feelings with you in an enthusiastic way.

So yeah... not only was I hurtin' furious yesterday, I come home today to find the floor lamp with a blown bulb.

And then the desk lamp has a blown bulb.

While I'm changing the desk lamp, it breaks off in my hand. What the hell - two in the same day? Coincidence? You think I should stay away from the computer for a while?

SRAM-alama-ding-dong

I finally just decided that the forces of Want exceeded my financial prudishness. Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, and I plunked down my dollars.

The SRAM Force build kit is coming in about a week, and soon, grasshopper, soon, I'm gonna be all DoubleTap™ey-ish. More with-it in the 21st century, yes I am. I've been a proud retro-grouch with a fetish for Italian parts, but I think I'm gonna give the boys and girls in Chicago (and Taiwan, or India, or wherever they manfacture) a chance at my velo-pleasure-receptors.

In other parts news, it seems that there's rumors of carbon fork breakage. In this, I'll remain a retro-grouch for a while. Stems? Bars? Steerer tubes? pretty damn important to keeping your ass upright and on the bike. Granted, in the famous Hincapie wreck in Paris-Roubaix due to a broken steerer, it was an aluminum steerer (and not carbon) that probably was compromised in a previous crash... but still. I'm just not there yet. One day maybe, but not just yet.

This Film Is Fucking Wonderful

I don't know how to start this... Well, ok, how about this: You should see This Film Is Not Yet Rated.

Seriously. Move it up to the top of your Netflix queue, go see if Blockbuster has it, watch for it in your local independent theaters.

(Thanks to Pete and Laura for recommending this movie to me, by the way...)

It's this really surprising and illuminating documentary about the MPAA and specifically the ratings system that movies go through (you know, that G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17 thing). The secrecy involved, the arbitrary and inconsistent way ratings are handed out, the ties to the movie industry and government lobbies.

Some of my favorite parts:
- The glaringly uneven treatment that the ratings board gives to sex vs. violence. (Lots of violence and killing is ok as long as there isn't blood on-screen, but a glimpse of pubic hair is indecent?)
- In a phone conversation between the head of the ratings board and the director of TFINYR , the ratings board person says (paraphrasing) "We [the ratings board] don't create values, we reflect the values of the culture we live in"... which would mean that if the culture was predominantly racist incestuous pedophiliacs, they would reflect that and defend their decision on "cultural values" grounds?
- Uneven treatment of hetero sex vs. gay sex. Great scene where they split-screen show identical shots from different movies. The camera angle is the same, the amount of clothing is the same, the depicted motion is the same, but if the people on screen are the same sex it gets an NC-17 rating and the hetero scene gets an R rating.
- The "surprising" revelation about industry connections (and presence of christian clergy?!) in the supposedly independent ratings appeal board.
- Interview with Matt Stone about South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut where a scene was replaced and it changed the rating... the part where they find the tape of Cartman's mom in a German scheisse film. Previously the tape was of her fellating a horse. Though nothing was actually shown, talking about bestiality is apparently worse than talking about coprophilia. Horse cocksucking is indecent, but shit-eating is OK? How they came to that conclusion baffles me too.

And a curious devil's advocacy thought about censorship and libel though... if you make a documentary about an organization that is hidden from the public eye (and will not comment or reveal anything about themselves) does that mean you can essentially print/publish anything you want about them? If you make slanderous or libelous statements, the aggrieved party would have to sue you to stop you, and then in court there's the question of proof of whether the statements are true or not (and thus malicious libel, or just reporting the facts), which would reveal the hidden information. So they can't really sue because then they wouldn't be able to keep their secrets... wacky, hunh? I'm not saying that TFINYR is a work of fiction or that it's credibility is in doubt, but the nature of the secret organization means that the investigation of the secrecy itself cannot be verified for accuracy or bias.

GPS disruptions and your DNA

While it probably didn't affect you, me, or our respective GPS receivers, a solar flare/eruption back in December probably messed with somebody who was doing some surveying work that day (and they probably couldn't just call a Solar Flare Mulligan...). But what really caught my eye in the article was the seeming common sense in contrast to many other irrational exuberances of technology dependence.

"... society cannot become overly reliant on technology without an awareness and understanding of the effects of future space weather disruptions," said Anthea Coster, Ph.D., MIT Haystack Observatory.

... and golly, what will be do if global warming extends into space and starts [gasp!] affecting space weather? Will Al Gore make another movie - this time about how many times he's given a presentation about Universal Warming?

Seriously though... in related irrational exuberance, now that the human genome has been sequenced, we blaze forward into a new world swimming in biotechnology. The question becomes: will we be able to maintain privacy and not have genetic prejudice in society, the workplace, the health care system, or the courts. Often, science and technology advances faster than policy and law do. Problematic, but understandable - speculating about the potential vs. actual difficulties and then codifying in law, while uncertain of the result, is a bit dodgy.

Perhaps this is where the imagination of science fiction comes into play... I mean, what exactly DO you do about manned space exploration when the length of the trip is measured in years? Why, one solution is to train astronaut families, right? Stable family units that are a self-contained emotional support system, with deep-seated loyalty among the crew already built in? Obviously, one thing we've learned is to not have treacherous non-family member Dr. Smiths on the crew. And be careful of robots that might temporarily go evil too. And you definitely gotta be careful about accidental astronaut love triangles among the crew too. 'Cause we all know how that ends up: space diapers and pepper spray.

who in their right mind DOESN'T like goatcake?

In honor of spring thaw, Stacey had a little shindig yesterday that I was really sorry to miss the beginning of. Why? Not the scavenger hunt, since my style of scavenger hunt is the city-wide version. Not the dancing - I'm not so much with the dancing - I'm more of a twitcher.

But mostly, I'm so sad to have missed the Goatcake while it was still intact. Who doesn't like sculpted cakes with blood-sacrifice neo-pagan symbology? I mean sheesh, yah gotta be a baby-eatin'-commie or somethin' to not like that.

I don't bake much, but next potluck I go to, I'm bringin' artfood, dammit. Rye-crisp Taj Mahal with Hommus reflecting pool? Maybe a Feta cheese Venus De Milo? Or perhaps something a little more modern?

And if the pot of coffee I just finished has its way with my nervous system, my mind is going to start dreaming up animatronic light-and-sound-show edible beverage fountains.

wherever did my memory go?

If anyone finds my memories, would you mind returning them? Thanks.

I say this because I was browsing a friend's Netflix queue. I was adding comments about things that I liked and didn't like, hoping to spare them the pain of bad/unwatchable movies and wasted time. This led me to wonder and poke around in their history and see what they rated how.... which led me to wonder and poke around in my own history to see things I had watched (sort of a reversed cinematic ego-surfing).

While there's lots a remember watching, and even enjoying... did I even watch The Longest Yard? I don't remember it. Was it because beer was involved? And what the hell possessed me to get Mean Girls? For some reason, I can't remember the plot of Seabiscuit, though there sure was enough media buzz at the time that I should know it by osmosis.

But I am happy to report that I remember, enjoyed, and am happy to recommend: Crash, Secretary, Audition (caution: squirmy Japanese horror), 21 Grams, Oldboy, Traffic, and the new Battlestar Galactica series, to name a few.