Brothel-Day! Year Two
Happy second birthday to the Brothel! Long may it be a venue for interconnectivity and frivolity. Until Delphi starts costing too much money, and then it’s over to Beehive.
February Thaw
Apologies for the lengthy delay in updates. My previous resolution to make sure I had at least one new entry every week has been partially scuppered by the destruction of the BenCam. The BenCam is a cheesy Logitech webcam that I was sent in the mail — Free! — years ago for ordering DSL or something. The corporation that sent it to me didn’t care that I had a Mac; they sent a Free! webcam to every new subscriber, and if it wasn’t compatible it wasn’t their fault. Things probably only cost 47¢ to manufacture anyway. And while it was not wholly compatible, I was able to find a couple of freeware workarounds that at least enabled me to use the thing for its intended purpose: low-res, low-quality pictures to be uploaded to a website.
Then I upgraded to Mac OS X, and I had to find a new workaround, which required me to use a cam module that recorded Quicktime films, and then save a frame from the movie. And then when I finally upgraded to Panther last month, even that functionality was lost. If I want a webcam now, I probably have to drop $144 on the iSight, something that’s not going to happen in this lifetime. So, no more pictures unless I have film developed and then scan the prints. Which is hardly going to keep my ongoing plan for web-portraiture current.
N.B.: The real snarl about the upgrade to Panther is that my OS no longer supports my ATI XClaim (Pro) dual-monitor card, which was probably my favourite thing about my set up. A 15″ monitor may be lame by today’s standards, but two of them combined into one desktop is a whole lot of real estate, and I’m still adjusting to the sudden halving of my virtual property.
And while I haven’t had the ability to sling any photos up on the web, my usual ‘blog-thoughts have been directed towards homework, as I am required to write semi-weekly internet entries for my current class on YA literature and development. Said entries can be found over on what I’m calling m3lbatoast west. (My teacher needs to be able to make comments, and I can’t seem to enable comments successfully on this monster.) So if you’re looking for Ben Content for the next twelve weeks, you’re much more likely to find it there, even if it will primarily be book reviews.
So, for alternate entertainment, I offer you the following: firstly, the probably obvious photo of my brother and his pudgy genetic receptacle. Judging from all the reactions to her from her most recent visit to New Hampshire, cooing is apparently mandatory behaviour. So… coo.
Secondly, I point you towards Aileen “Ozymandias” Chute‘s most recent ‘blog entry about attempting to push-start her drained vehicle. I found it highly amusing. I have probably twenty letters and maybe three times as many e-mail messages from her, all written in a slightly more frenetic version of this storytelling style. I hope she gets famous so that I can publish our correspondence and she can lob lawsuits at me. I feel certain that her grounds for Cease and Desist would be based largely upon the legal precedents of “Shut up!”, “Because I say so!”, and “Oh, yeah?!? Huh? Huh?” Which, actually, succinctly describes about a quarter of our correspondence.
Twenty-Nine
Wooooo.
The Fun never stops.
The close of my twenty-ninth and the commencement of my thirtieth year. I don’t have the typical base-ten digital fear that consumes so many people, but I would feel much, much better about Turning Thirty if today hadn’t been — to be unmitigatedly crude for a moment — such utter gash.
However, here’s lovely belated wishes to Dina Solomon, who is unfortunately not the D. Solomon listed in the Berkeley city telephone directory, and therefore didn’t hear from me on Sunday night.
Official Kaiju Bootleg
Got the Official DVD Bootleg from Kaiju Big Battel today, and there is definitive evidence of both Peter and me in the trailer for the upcoming Swarm feature. I rack in a fantastic three visible appearances with two offscreen or weapon-only shots, while Pete makes do with two recognizable cameos and the same number of offscreen or special effects appearances.
Granted, almost all of the above tally occur for mere fractions of a blurry second. We each have one clear, obvious moment of screen time, but Pete’s hand gets another few seconds of very obvious camera time, so he wins on that front.
For those of you without the DVD or with crappy Pause/Still functions on your player or computer, here are some stills from the trailer:
I’m in off-blue, on the right, with the dagger and the hair.
Uchu Chu is about to land on Peter, who is offscreen.
Peter is dead center, with rusty pipe raised over his head.
In order from right to left:
The big blurry maroon thing is Commuminion, then Pete, then me.
Still can’t figure out where we are in the above images? Click on each for images with clearer indication.
T-Shirts I have Worn This Summer
T-Shirts I have Worn This Summer
That Have Induced Comment By My Students
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Pre-Approved Veteran Status
“Bob” sent me a large manilla envelope yesterday asking me if I was “taking full advantage and getting all the available benefits of [my] status as a war-time veteran”. Apparently “[t]he benefits are unbelievable!”
Well, considering that I’ve never been in a branch of the service — helpfully delineated for me (just in case I forgot due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or Manchurian Candidate Syndrome) by cutesy little stickers on the outside of the envelope — and therefore never served during war-time, I’m not sure I have been taking advantages of my fictional status! What a fool I have been. The only side-benefit of being a “war-time veteran”, which I was somehow able to work out even though the United States wasn’t technically at war with anyone during the period I was between the age ranges of Selective Service, I’ve only luxuriated under the advantageous hotdog availability at the local Legionnaire’s Hall on Memorial Day. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
I’m definitely framing my Certificate of Nomination at once! Without delay! I only hope that not being a veteran won’t prevent me from taking advantage of these fine, fine veteran perks.
Kaiju: Superwrong
If Kaiju is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
The inimitable James A. Wu has been working for Kaiju since he left his previous job at Comicopia, and is starring as the Asian Scotsman in Kaiju’s upcoming, as-of-yet untitled DVD. It was advertized as The Swarm in the trailer that premiered in between battels during the May 1st event. It was a welcome sight, as it had been since December that any pertinent information about the “Unsanctioned” Battel had been released from the Kaiju offices. Those photographs from the filming were thrilling in their way, but the Swarm trailer was wonderful. Specifically because Peter and I could each identify ourselves and our contributions to the melée. Now Kaiju simply needs to make it available on their Bideo Entertainment area, so that we can sent the link to everyone we know.
Anyway, it was fantastic to see James in person, if but briefly, and marvelous to see him in full Tartan-O-Vision on the big screen. And he gave me the Superwrong sign as pictured above, which became an object of both jealousy and total confusion as I carried it with me from the event and into the T. It made me feel like I needed to march up and down with it, like a lost and totally inappropriate refugee from the March For Women’s Lives. The sign also served to identify me as someone who had just been to the Kaiju event, which meant that more than a half dozen people came right up to me and started up conversations with me about the event, about the sign, about Kaiju in general. What was it about the sign? It didn’t say ASK ME ABOUT: KAIJU. It didn’t spell out the word “Approachable”, but somehow it intimated this very adjective to passers by.
Lost Time
I feel like I’ve spent all day fiddling with my computer. Working on The Brothel for a good part of the afternoon, trying to follow Nick Locking’s directions on how to personalize colors and format choices. Then home where my irritation with my inability to download a particular BitTorrent file led me to the Digital Archive Project which led me in turn to eDonkey which led me to fiddling about with Mac OS X’s UNIX emulator, Terminal. Flush with my partial success at installing eDonkey, I decided that had the ability to install the CLI version of UnRar for the Mac as well. Which led me to remember that I couldn’t get that webcam driver to work the other day…
Long story short, I remembered what it is about computers that attracted me to them so much years ago: the ability to lose all sense of time as one spirals around the gravity well of perfection, getting ever closer with each successive pass. Time stretches and eventually loses all meaning in a gravity well, and I love the possessive way in coding and commands and tinkering and noodling can leave one gasping for air and sleep when one finally surfaces and switches off the cathode ray gun. And while air and sleep are sweet after such a dive into the darkness of minutiae, I find that the lure of minutiae remains undiminished the next morning…
I, however, have 150 pages to read before tomorrow, and now I have four fewer hours in which to read them. Time to make some tea.
Christmas Gets Earlier Every Year
Yesterday, I saw huge banners hung in the window of my local JO-ANN’S FABRICS store informing me that Halloween was coming, and that Jo-Ann and her associates would be ready and able to help me with my pre-holiday needs so that I would be fully prepared on the eve of all hallows.
Now, I celebrate two holidays: Groundhog’s Day and Hallowe’en. I send out greeting cards on Groundhog’s Day, much in the way that ordinary people send out Christmas cards — the sort of empty correspondence that serves of a reminder that the sender and the recipient aren’t really what anyone would call friends anymore. The sort of card that makes sense when it arrives on the day that is the harbinger of Spring Cleaning. On Hallowe’en I celebrate by dressing up in a costume.
Okay, so, yes… I am already planning my Hallowe’en costume for 2002, but that doesn’t mean i need to see advertizements for it. I mean, what is this? Is Hallowe’en the new Christmas and Jo-Ann & Co. need to tell me that I still have FIFTY shopping days left until Hallowe’en? Which probably isn’t true, since most New Hampshire towns have abandoned the idea that a Holiday should be celebrated on the day upon which it falls. It’s bad enough that trick or treating starts at midday in order to prevent the successful molestation or injury of small children traipsing about the quiet New England hamlets in their pre-fabricated commercial culture plastic sheathes… It’s bad enough that parents drive their children from house to house and to other neighborhoods so that they can get the best loot…
…But the fact that Hallowe’en is being advertized a mere ten days into September means that the first commercial signs of Christmas will creep back as well. I fully expect to see Christmas lights and fake evergreen trees in store windows by November 20th. Mark my words.
DO I KEEP THE BEARD?
DO I KEEP THE BEARD? — Considerations and Stipulations:
1. I start work tomorrow after a three week break and an 18 day period of not shaving.
2. I teach at a High School, so my beard — despite my scant genetic ability to follicate successfully — will be better than that of any of my students. However, I should still endeavor to look professional.
3. My family generally seem to like it. I anticipate that my students will hate it and my colleagues won’t give a damn. I have no friends who are local enough to speak their minds, as the most vocal opponent is in Thailand.
4. I haven’t changed my look in a long, long time. And I’m not ready to cut off the ponytail.
5. Further reading: Martian Love Fest, including an excerpt from Cryptonomicon about beards.
6. The popular consensus of this forum will not necessarily affect my decision.
7. Trust me when I say that there is no one who takes a personal interest in the scratchiness quotient of my face.
8. I would hate it if I turned into one of those people who is forever absently or musingly stroking his facial hair as if making a ridiculous attempt to smooth it out. Euuch.
9. I fear that the fact that I can’t grow any moustache across my filtrim will become laughably apparent and evidence a great sculptural faux pas.
10. I think the photograph with the beard makes me look older. I don’t think that illusion carries over into the daily animation of life.
11. I took five pictures with the webcam before I was satisfied with the beard picture. That might mean something.
12. Tangent: I like how the bookcase in the background is completely different, even though it’s the same square footage of the same wall.
13. The first word that springs to mind for you may be “unkempt”, but the word I’ve been getting all day from students is “satanic”.
14. I went on a huge, ill-advised DVD splurge this weekend (I had a 20% off coupon at BORDERS), and I ended up picking up two DVDs that I should be slightly ashamed to own. I am slightly ashamed, but my professed love for bitter romantic comedies is well-documented, so I might as well own up. Anyway, I picked up a copy of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY… for $10.
Harry grows a beard about halfway through the film. This is done for three reasons:
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- In order to differentiate between the earlier two “ages” of Harry, age 21 and age 24. The beard is supposed to make him look older.
- In order to show that he is depressed. People who are in a funk grow beards, the film says, because they no longer care about things like person appearance. It is at this point in the film that Harry is also seen wearing jeans with frequency, and generally looking rumpled. This is to contrast Sally’s seeming even-keeled response to her breakup, producing no evident doldrums.
- So that he can shave it off later and Sally can say, “I like you without the beard.”
15. The moustache ends — my students are calling it “the anti-moustache” or “the reverse moustache” as it is all tips and no middle, as if I’m selling scraps of facial hair to Hitler — are now long enough to dip in whatever I am drinking. I hate this.
16. Culturally typical responses to someone with a new beard include the following: You/He look older/more distinguished/more mature/handsomer. None of these apply to me. I somehow manage only to look more somber and troubled. Yay.
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