Friday, December 30, 2005

Subscriptions now figured out

OK, it took a few tries, but I think I've got this subscription concept whooped.

Click here to join a Group that is established solely for the purpose of notifying readers of new blog entries. I will also be adding this link to the links on the right of the blog.

http://groups.google.com/group/Somewhere-Between-the-Bosque-Brazos-Subscribers

Coming Soon: Rudimentary Subscription Service

Soon, you may be able to subscribe to this blog. I'm testing a scheme that might work now.

If it does work, you should be able to email me a request to add you and as soon as I get the message, I will add you to the distribution list. It's not going to be automatic, but should work for those of us who remember punch cards and real floppy discs.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Think everlasting box set in a digital music world

When I have to fly on an airplane for longer than an hour, I always want something to read. Takes my mind off the underlying anxiety of flying and opens my mind to some new ideas.

I have a specific list of things I like to read: the in-flight magazine, Wired magazine, and Fast Company magazine.

Wired and Fast Company are not magazines to which I subscribe. [aside: I tried subscribing to Wired once and used their on-line subscription tool. It didn't work, which is just damned ironic if you ask me.] Rather, Wired and Fast Company are two of my out-of-the-box mags. I read them because they tend to have a good variety of stories on topics I don't typically read a lot about, but which I probably would if I were a more voracious reader: technology and business management.

Apart from being disappointed by its embarrassing failure to seize the power of the technology it espouses, Wired almost always delivers content that I find to be future-looking and engaging.

Fast Company tends to have a lot of stories on innovative approaches to business leadership tha I find interesting. A story in the latest issue helped me discover the true topic of today's post: Pandora. Now this is cool.

Perhaps you've come across on-line music channels that customize the music for you, such as on Yahoo, where they recommend music based on some initial selections you make, but then primarily populated using the formula of 'people who listen to [this song or artist] also bought or listened to [this song or artist].' Amazon has made recommendations for book buyers in much the same manner.

I actually have enjoyed the My Station feature on Yahoo Messenger. I do tend to think it gets a little repetitive at times because while the songs may be different, the same artists appear over and over. But overall, it's not too shabby.

Pandora is another beast altogether. Rather than using guilt by association to recommend music, Pandora goes a little more analytic on the music's ass. It actually analyzes the song musically and compares it to other music you say you like to find music with similar traits.

I tested it and it seems to work fairly well. Not perfect, but I noticed it tended to be a little more transendental in selecting music than the other types of services: meaning that Pandora would recommend something I've never heard of much more frequently than the other 'associative' methods. In other words, it helps me find new music a little more than the other method.

It does require an open mind and ears to listen to the unfamiliar recommendations, rather than skipping ahead because it's not something I recognize. As a human, I think that's a natural reaction to look for familiarity. But that don't populate the CD collection, ya know?

Give Pandora a try. It does only allow a certain number of songs to be recommended before they ask that you register (which is free). They also only allow skipping a set number of songs each hour. They have a paid status which helps avoid advertisements. But I don't mind ads. I actually listened to them on Yahoo Messenger every three or four songs. The only thing that bugged me there was that they were the same 2 or 3 ads over and over and over.

I recommended Pandora to a friend of mine who is a big music fan. He gave it an initial thumbs up, having entered Rush and gotten music he thought complemented that well. See what the box brings you and let me know how it goes.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

What strikes me

Seems that we as a nation feel it important to go to countries like Iraq and Afghanistan and drive out theocracies that force societies to live by religious rules that not everyone agrees with. Often, the examples cited as to why we need to do this are the ludicrous-to-us practices such as stoning someone or when women have to cover all but their eyes in public. We sniff at how America stands for freedom and that democracy will free them from such dogma.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our own society is creeping that direction. Sure, it's less overt and not as severe as public lashings or women not being allowed to drive. But, the scary part is how a religion has begun to drastically influence our society.

The current party of power is aligned with conservative Christian interests. Their platforms are fairly obvious and wrapped in the context of 'family' and 'values.' Laws have been passed throughout the country that creep toward pro-life issues.... protecting 'unborn' fetuses in cases where pregnant women are injured, abortion notification laws, laws restricting funding for abortion providers. Then you have the school issues like creationism, er, 'intelligent design,' prayer in school and the issue of a reference to God in the Pledge of Allegiance.

The intolerance of the religious right is polarizing our country. The latest madness is a backlash against genericizing the holidays. Only in an age when we're out fighting the New & Improved Crusades (50 percent less denominational!) would it make sense that we're incensed about all these damned heathens taking the Christmas out of, well, Christmas. Seems the polarity in this case is being brought from the North Pole and how our American society is diluting the holiday season by removing references to Christmas. And while the boycotts are being threatened, the righteous being as indignant as possible, I look around for references to Hanukah, Solstice, Kwanzaa, or even Ramadan which might be elbowing out the good Christians. Scant in the America I live in.

So what we've got now are people who are mad because society has tried to accomodate more religions by making greetings, public displays and commercial enterprises applicable to more than just the one religion the zealots seem to be practicing. They describe it as taking their religious holiday away in the interest of being politically correct. Boo hoo. Perhaps they should consider the fact that Christianity is a Jesus-come-lately in the winter holiday market. The Jews, I think, predated Christianity seeeing as how he was one. Solstice, well, that's as old as the sun. And Islam, well, that's good news for the Christians... their holidays Ramadan (ended early November) and the Festival of Sacrifices (begins in January) seem to bookend our traditional December holidays. Whew.

So for all the apple-pie cooking, flag-waving Americanisms we have, to get our society's Temple Garments in a wad (sorry LDSers, didn't mean to drag you into it) over this issue is ludicrous. I think about how long we've bragged to the world about America being a great melting pot of people and cultures. Yet, the same people who wave the flags and sell the pies want to complain when the product of the melting pot (whether you think it a stew or maybe some kind of metal is up to you) doesn't look, taste or smell the way they want.

That strikes me as just wrong.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Sad Affairs of the State

The light inside the refrigerator that is my mind has been staying on a little longer than usual, adding a dull glimmer to what often is a numb darkness. The topic tends to ebb between two inter-related topics: church/state issues and the polarization of our society.

The church/state issues seem to portend all that is wrong with our nation. Yet, society in general seems to be generally polarized about it, but not inasmuch in a for/against manner. Rather, it seems our society has become an us vs. them, where the 'us' are religious-based conservatives railing about how liberals are killing our world. They point to the 'immorality' and how it is endangering us both now and in the afterlife. You're either with God or against God and if you dare say anything less than an "amen!" you might as well pack your hot-weather outfit for eternity.

More on this later.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Stand for something or sit down

The news on the internet tonight tells us that Rosa Parks died today, 50 years after refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala.

I will be interested in how our nation responds to her passing. Mrs. Parks was a catalyst for the civil rights movement, her refusal to stand helping to provide a launching point for the civil rights work of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

I'm not black, yet I have a profound respect for the civil rights freedom fighters that preceded my generation. I wonder if I'm any different from the suburban white boy who wants to be gangsta or if, because the cause that moves me is one of human rights rather than the notion of singing about thugs n harmony, I am a different beast entirely. While we both seem entranced by a cultural movement we cannot exactly call our own - the two subjects seem diametrically opposed. One might find some connections between Constitutional Amendments protecting free speech as well as civil rights, I tend to believe deep down that Rosa Parks wasn't sitting so some punk-ass kids could spew obscenities and beat their chests.

I tend to think she wanted her race to be treated the same - as humans.

The courage Rosa Parks embodied is rare in this day and age. Societal pressures to conform, whether the contemporary standards are just, remain as intimidating as ever. Those who today speak against the President, the war or any similar topic are verbally castigated by those in the "majority" as liberals, which is intended as an insinuation of being completely against all those things that define "American" to the collective Right. Liberals = bleeding-heart, tax-loving, homosexual-tolerant, broken-home, abortion-sponsoring romantics who don't go to church and, probably because of that, just don't get the divine supremacy of the Right. Which is how the hell I got to this rant amidst a personal tribute of sorts to Rosa Parks.

She finally had enough of the bullshit our society was operating on for ages. She stood up (by sitting) for what she knew to be inherently right. Our society balked, arrested her, threatened her, harrassed her and drove her out of the state. But because enough people also decided to stand, it eventually made differences that touched the lives of virtually everyone of her race in the generations to follow. That's courage.

Few go to that extreme today. Those who do get quickly tossed aside as some nut or just another liberal trying to make a point. Do any frontiers remain for human rights? You bet. Several issues are as core to humanity as Civil Rights were in the last century. Assisted suicide and homosexuality seem to be screaming for people of courage to emerge. We may some day reach a point where we need to assert the right to freedom FROM religion, if our America continues to be driven by those with a theocratic agenda. Wait - wasn't that the whole point of the, um, American Revolution? Aside from that issue - there will not be another Rosa Parks. RIP.

Saturday, September 17, 2005


A cool album by one of the best bands of all time, "Stormtroopers of Death"

Picture pages, Picture pages, time to get your paper and your pencil

So I finally decided to start dabbling with the functionality of posting photos to the blog. I just loooove the photo on my profile. Use it for Fantasy Football team mascots and found it using Google image search, looking for devil images.

No, I'm not a devil worshipper, it's just my personality icon. Wouldn't you figure that from someone who goes by LDiablo (phonetically, "The Devil" in Spanish)?

I don't really intend to put photos up of my kids, wife, or my home. These things ought to have some privacy protection so that people can't show up at my door some night thinking they're my best new friend (or enemy) because of something I wrote here.

There should be a photo posted prior to this message of an album cover.

More later. Beelzebub.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Six with a capital F

Six Feet Under goes down tonight. Bummer.

Seldom has a show evoked such an emotional reaction out of me. The only thing on network TV that could do it is The Simpsons, which could make me laugh out loud over and over and over. The Sopranos could always elicit a smug chuckle about the hopeless, low-life characters on the show and just how funny they could be while thinking they were just.

Damn that Alan Ball and company for creating something that has really become an escapist family for me, not altogether unlike The Room episodes on the series, where the family patriarch is discovered to have maintained a room away from his family where he could go do whatever he couldn't around them, like listen to his music, smoke, etc. No one else in my immediate family watches SFU, so it became a Sunday night respite that drew me in with intriguing characters and intelligent storylines.

I always appreciated the dark humor. My best friend drove a hearse in college, so perhaps there's some wistfulness there. Something I found most alluring, especially in the first few seasons, was how the opening death, which then usually became a centerpiece for the week's plot to emanate from, was always so random and varied. And yet they found ways to work it into the storylines and help explore different cultures, different ways of living, different ways of dying, and most importantly, different ways of grieving for all the world to see. (In later seasons, the opening deaths tended to start becoming less important, disappointing, but not entirely to the detriment of the show since we already had a great show developed.

Back to the grief - it's been central in my life for the past 10 years. My father died unexpectedly in 1996. That experience has affected me more than any other life event. I started to write that it changed me more, but in thinking about it, I really think more that it has maken me more resolute in who I was. But seldom did an episode go by that thoughts of my father weren't conjured by SFU. The most obvious mechanism for this was in the family's late father occasionally appearing in the afterlife to talk to his children or wife as if he was there in person. He always had an omniscient, calm tone that really underscored the idea that these people were talking to someone who was dead. It was my favorite part of the show because more than anything, I'd want a similar chance with my own dad (realizing those exchanges really only go on in one's head).

So the pre-press on tonight's episode keep saying there will be no spin-offs, follow-ups, etc. So in typical Six Feet Under, nothing's sacred style, they'll all blow up, get murdered or otherwise meet their fate. The only real question now will be how: all together or one at a time, and what kind of philosophizing about death will we get in the process?

I dunno, but I sure as hell can't wait. And then on the other hand, I don't want it to end. Damn you, Alan Ball.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Take a Step Back

There come times in your life that things really get in what seems a bad rut. Bad turns to worse, at least as it seems, and you're left to wonder just what evil you must have conjured to deserve such rotten luck.

I tend to think life is much less karma than it is cyclical. Forget all that "one good deed deserves another" bunk. Things tend to happen independently. Can a person's energy affect things? Well, yeah, OK, inasmuch as your proactivity can affect certain events. But so much of the negative in our lives tends to really be outside our personal influence. Rather, we become the ancillary effects of other actions or inactions. To quote the bumpersticker crowd, "Shit Happens."

Back to the whole cyclical idea for a minute. I had a high school math teacher who was into biorythyms. Give her your birthday and she could plot out a chart that would show three (I think) different waves to represent three elements of life: physical, mental, spiritual. These may or may not have been the actual elements measured, but that's really not important to this discussion. It is simply that the three elements measured operate like the rest of the natural world -- on a cycle. Women have a manifested cycle every month known as the period. Men, actually do, too, but it doesn't present itself as evidently. Our bodies do act cyclically. For me, it's always been most noticeable in my complexion. It cycles from a dry to oily composition on a regular basis, regardless of my cleaning regimen. So if the physical body has a cycle, it's possible that the mental and spiritual body have a cycle. And since they're all independent, they all peak and valley at different times.

Those who believe in them would say biorythyms will show you when you're apt to be at your best ... when two or more cycles peak at same time. The reverse is also suggested. Imagine all elements hitting the low at same time.

I tend to believe some of this. Sure, the cycles don't damn you to bad happening. But they probably make it a little harder in a very subtle way. I suggest it also makes the highs seem higher at times ... those rare moments in your life when everything seems to be going so right or coming so easily. It's the sports equivalent (or perhaps biophysical explanation for) being in the zone. But I think it's less about the karma than just being at your best for the things you can affect. The good, or bad, things that happen to you and that you attribute to your biorythyms are likely results of your action or inaction. Again, though, that's the stuff you affect. Plenty more comes your way that you didn't plan for.

All that said, I return to the subject of life getting someone down. When those times happen, and they practically happen to everyone who will admit it, you gotta get out of the rut. Work against the cycles? Sure. Put on that happy face, work a little harder, fight the urge to scream out loud about everyone who makes you freakin crazy.

But aside from that, we all need perspective. Stop. Back up. Try to assess everything freshly and ask yourself if it's really as bad as you're bitching and moaning about. Usually, it's not that bad. Find those bright spots, or in some cases, those not-as-dark spots.

Blee-org.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Geeks and freaks

Turns out I'm a geek, but not as much as my best friend, Richard. On the continuum of geekiness, he registers a little right of me. After all, he was on the computer science team in high school. He works in IT now. He owned a Tandy CoCo and actually used it to program some credits for video projects we made in high school. I only had the more consumer-friendly Commodore 64 and never could understand the PEEK and POKE commands enough to do shit with it except play a bunch of store bought (by someone else) video games.

So I did nudge a little closer to Rich on the continuum by blogging before he did. Truth be told, though, he has created web pages before. And, his 'blog' is really a series of web pages he created using FrontPage. While the real uber-fuckin geeks of the world are sniffing at that, I'm saying, well it beats the hell out of my using the point-and-shoot version of web creation called Blogger. So more power to him, and fuck all you people who would look down your nose anyway.

Sorry - I'm not always this profane. I sometimes get in anti-social or angsty (may not even be a word, but if not, fuck it) moods that put me against the world. Some who've known me a long time would suggest that that's more the norm, though I'd disagree at least in recent history. There have been times in my life when I've been all bottled up, waiting for one more thing to set me off. The chip on my shoulder's been so big at times, that I felt like that damn guy on Van Halen's 5150, whatever the mythological character's name is.

Can I explain why? No, not really. Just more a way of processing my emotions. I've learned to keep a lot of shit in (even though I tend to be VERY expressive around my friends and family). But in work and public life, that shit gets all bottled up. It hasn't been an issue for quite some time until very recently. As lately as a month ago, things had just started falling into place. I was getting to a point where things really were starting to seem hopeful. I'd recently moved, gotten a new house, new job within my company, new opportunities to spend time with my family, my wife finally got a job. Then things started to splinter. My boss quit and I had to suddenly take on a whole lot of crud that I had tried to get away from in moving. My wife's job started to show signs of not being as great as first thought. I had to travel more. The baby got sick for first time in her life - causing my wife to get no sleep and me to be the one who would be the root of so many problems because of it.

So lately, I've felt like the old, ugly me has started showing his nasty face around at times. And I don't like that. My family and friends don't deserve it.

My wife and I started listening to Bruce Robison a couple years ago after seeing him perform solo at the inaugural Kenneth Threadgill Concert Series performance. We really liked his style of Texas singing and songwriting. My wife had known some of the songs he'd done for others, such as George Strait's "Desperately," The Dixie Chicks' "Travelin Soldier," and probably the biggest hit, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's "Angry All the Time." Granted, I'm not a fan of contemporary Nashville country. I like the roots country and the like, but most of the modern stuff just isn't my cup of (iced) tea.

We started listening to this Robison character, whose brother, Charlie Robison, happens to be a little more famous as a performer. Charlie's wife is one of the Dixie Chicks (Emily) and Bruce's wife is the blonde country singer, Kelly Willis. So there's a lot of talent in this family as it is. And now the Robison boys' sister has an album out - Robyn Ludwick. Soooo, for our 10th wedding anniversary, my wife and I decide to find a place where Bruce is playing and go see him. We settle on Austin, his hometown.

We saw the show and it was great. He performed at an Austin landmark called the Broken Spoke. It's a place the owner built himself in the '60s and it's seen its better days. The ceilings are real low. And Bruce is, well, freakishly tall. I think they say he's at least 6'7" -- and that's not in boots. So he has to duck his head a lot at the Spoke.

I've been listening to more and more of his stuff, ever since planning to attend the show, and started listening to some of the songs I had previously skipped past. One of those has been "Angry All the Time." I never was a McGraw fan so I tended to push that song away just because of the association. I'm not saying it's right, but I did. So I start listening to it and start to thinking about it. Then it hits me.... damn. That sounds kinda like the me I tried to leave 2.5 hours away from here.

It sings about being angry all the time and feeling like the world has left you far behind. The spouse suffers. Damn. That's what happened to me before we had moved. And that's why moving was so refreshing. It gave me a chance to be human again. Able to be civil to my wife and family and friends and have a different way of looking at the world. Things were really refreshing around here. But all of a sudden, I've begun to backslide due to circumstances.

Some would probably argue that how I act is all up to me, regardless of circumstances. Well, yes, but then that would suggest humans can turn off emotion and be rational about everything. Shit, we can't even be rational when watching fake life on TV (Need I bring up American Idol or Survivor?), so how can we expect to be rational about everything in our own lives? We can't - we react.

Do I have a point here .... well, I've been waiting for it to hit me like an epiphany. That ain't happening. But I'm writing fuck less since beginning this entry. (that one doesn't count-wasn't aggressive ;) If I can get through this storm (which may take several months), I should emerge stronger. I just hope the people around me will be able to tolerate it.

Thursday, June 02, 2005

"They have the Internet on computer now"

That's a quote from my guru, Homer Simpson, when he was researching his new Internet company during the dot-com era. This week, I'm reaping a little benefit from the proliferation of that lil network that could.

Commercialism ain't all bad. I've found the abilities to research products and shop around from the convenience of my own home to be quite beneficial. But it can also be frustrating as hell to keep finding the same things, over and over, just priced differently and advertised on a variety of web pages.

So I went looking for some specialty art for my home. Had seen some people with metal artwork that had a Texana design. SPecificially, I was looking for a silhouette of a star, with a circle around it. Some web sites called it a Texas Ranger badge, others a Texas star, yet others a Lone Star. Regardless of the name, I wanted one. Only I wanted one custom-made with my family's name around the top part of the circle and the year we got married on the bottom, as in "Est. 1995."

I found a site for a place within 15 miles of my home that offered such star. What luck. I sent an email. I called their 800-number. I filled out their on-line request form. No friggin' response. I finally asked someone I work with if they knew the person running this outfit (because they were from the same small town as this woman) and she said, "Oh, I think that guy is going through a divorce and has closed down."

OK. So find another source. Looked and looked and looked, but nothing that was the star in a circle with customizable words. Thought I was gonna go crazy.

Then I started searching for indirect words. Metal art was one of the search terms. Turned up a site for a guy's side business Expressive Metal. He didn't offer my piece directly, but did offer custom work. One of his off-the-shelf pieces had a star and circle in it, so at least I had a point of reference.

We discussed. He made some drawings. Agreed on a price. And it is ready. I'm picking it up this weekend in Houston. He sent a preview. Looks great.

Long way to go, especially after the first website seemed so perfect and so oddly close to home. But in another twist, the guy lives 10 minutes from my cousin who lives in Houston. So I may very likely get to see him while making the trip.

Who said the Internet is only used for porn, gambling and video games?

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Eureka!

Contemplation on this blog continues. Inasmuch as most of my material here has been about the blogging experience itself, would that make this a meta-blog?

I have fully realized that a policy I have practiced and will now formally adopt herein:
"If there's nothing interesting to write about, then don't."

My intention is to eventually emerge from this meta-blog worthlessness into a meadow of profundity. (Beware when I start stringing the polysyllabic words together. Sometimes signals a dangerous level of the self-import that damns so many wannabe writers.)

'Nuff said for this time (reference paragraph 2, this entry).

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

In Need of a Standing Eight-Count

This is just me talking to myself, but by typing into a computer. It's a freaking diary, isn't it? No, it's a weblog; blog if you're nasty. Whatever the hell it is, just doesn't seem worth much at this point.

Maybe because I've had those days lately where your life feels like a heavyweight in the middle-rounds, getting beaten on constantly, tired and punch-drunk where you keep moving to avoid the punches and have no idea where you are. And somewhere around the corner, you suspect there will be a knockout with your name on it. Yeah, that's a fun existence. That's called life and work and the grind. Once in a while, there's a good day. But so often, the days just roll on past like numbers on the odometer: insignificant as they're happening, but adding up quicker than you realize.

I've done a little snooping around in other people's blogs. The Next Blog>> button at the top of the Blogger page is the only way I've found to really check out other people's work (if you could call it that). Yeah, you can go through your profile and find people who list the same keywords as you put in your Interests list. Wow. So I can find the other 7 losers who really remember the band Fastway from the 80s? Notsomuch a lure. But that's a hassle anyway. The Next Blog>> button is as good a way as any to stumble into someone else's stream-of-consciousness. And there's plenty of people peeing in these streams.

Gotta admit, there are some cool designs, and some damned obsessive people focused on topics I do not care about. Knitting. Gay political activism. Some Spanish-writing couple's babies. Uh, no thanks.

And if you're going to have a slick-looking blog, populate it with some relevant, intriguing or at least entertaining material. Most I've seen tend to be either:

-- on-line diaries (Oh, does Josh really care about me? Will he instant message me? Would he just forward me an email? *puke*)

-- attempts at presenting an amalgam of cleverness/offbeatedness/or just pure smug intellectualism that the reader clicks away thinking, "man, they just try too hard..." *slowly shakes head*


-- are written in either a language other than English and/or by someone in a far-flung part of the world (I've seen blogs from Christchurch, New Zealand; Koala Lumpur, Malaysia; Nova Scotia, Canada; and Singapore just tonight), while intriguing that I might get insight from someone in another part of the world, I don't have the time to sort through their 'life' online to find the parts I'd be interested in reading, and they sure as hell haven't been beating a path to my neck o' the woods.

So maybe it's just the fatigue. Maybe it's because I don't have a muse, other than the whole investigation of this blog world itself. Or, could just be I'm disinterested in blogging because no one has commented on any of my posts to tell me I'm coool. *wink* *giggle*....*gag*

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Somewhere between the Brazos & Bosque

Somewhere between the Brazos & Bosque

I miss my Dad. He died several years ago, when I was 25. Seldom a day goes by I don't think about him or his influence in my life. The greatest lesson in my life came from our relationship: never leave anything unsaid that you might regret having left out of the conversation of life, especially 'I love you.'

Can we edit our lives?

So the whole notion of whether or not I should edit my blog entries has had me thinking for a couple days. This medium seems so immediate, conversational and damn near stream-of-consciousness that I just have the initial gut feel that somewhere a blog geek is cringing at the thought.

Then again, it's not like I'm using instant messaging shorthand and emoticons lol :) Someone please share with me the emoticon for dripping with sarcasm.

Back to the point - I read my initial entries and cringe when I see a subject-verb disagreement, or the repetitive use of a word. My nature is to edit. I want to make it right. This isn't like presidential papers that I'm going back and wiping away proof that Reagan really knew. I'm just improving what is intended to be on display for the world to read.

The grander idea of being able to edit our lives, though, now that's intriguing. Imagine tidying up the sordid bits a little. At least where there'd be no proof or anyone else's memory to haunt you. I'm sure that's something the criminal mind prays to someone or something for on a daily basis. Then there's the really dark times. To be able to just blot out, edit if you will, that incident when you had a horrific car accident. Maybe you were abused as a child. Or, maybe someone ripped the heart out of your body and left you whimpering in a lifeless mass, wishing the damage had been physical instead of mental.

There's this cliche in movies and in life of people who are asked to reflect on their lives. "I wouldn't change a thing," they invariably say, wistfully recollecting an arduous but rewarding journey. Screw that. Even my best days I'd probably change a thing or two. There's always room for an even better ride, isn't there?

Maybe that's just the editor in me talking.

Friday, May 06, 2005

Justice due

OK. This is my second attempt to write my second blog entry. Damn power blinked off before I could save a half-written entry. I don't have it in me to try to recreate it.

I did get into a discussion with one of my best friends about blogs and my publishing of one. He brought up Chris (see previous entry), and I explained post No. 1. This friend, despite being under the influence of alcohol and extreme mental agony from a subject not to be discussed here, really made a point to me that I had been missing.

The topic was why I was doing a blog. I suggested that there was a potential desire to be published as a writer. He pointed out that blogs aren't really 'published' in the original sense of publishing. To be published, he said, someone has to read your work, decide they want to publish it and then go to the expense of publishing it. Blogs are people posting their own writings on the Internet. It's not the same, he said.

And while my inner journalist self could only look down, wondering how I had missed such an obvious perspective. Perhaps that was because of a minor rant I had once made in an essay on the review website Epinions.com. While it's primarily a review site, epinions at one time (I haven't been active in several years) would sometimes pose rhetorical questions for writers to try to answer with their own subject matter knowledge to try to help others sort it out. The topic was 'Would you be willing to pay for an online subscription to newspapers?' My essay went off on a tangent than directly answering the question. But it's a belief I've had for many years. The editorial process is an undervalued process that is increasingly becoming underused. It is directly related to the notion of publishing requiring someone willing to take a chance on an editor's work.


Back to the new subject of today's entry (the first was going to be more exploration of this whole blog experience, how it has worked to now, the process of self-editing, yadda yadda tomato):

Went to lunch with some friends today. They were working. I wasn't. Guess which one of us had a margarita for lunch. On the way back to drop them off, this Dodge 4x4 truck tries to cut us off as we approach a stop light, then swerves back into his lane and runs a red light just as it turns red. Across the intersection, he barely misses a car and swerves around another vehicle and then speeds to get past a semi-truck before two lanes merge. All three of us in the car exlaim out loud how close that guy was to causing an accident. I point out, in the line of traffic perpendicular to us, about 4 cars back is a cop. And there's a cop right there, I point out with my finger, and I bet he didn't see anything. Then, as the cop gets to the intersection, he abruptly turns and goes up the street out of sight with no lights or siren. We proceed on when the light turns green, wondering if he really was pursuing the truck or just trying to get somewhere else.

Just as we were about to give up on the idea, we see him as we crest a hill. The cop pulled over the truck and neither of them look too happy. I slow down and honk my horn three times. We all point at the guy and give the thumbs up. Justice due and justice served.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Sideways or up

So it is, I begin a blog. I have my reservations, primarily that I'll become my friend, Chris, who now has a dual identity: that of a big, nerdy nice-guy like me and that of "cool-guy" Chris, who has his own blog and seems to have developed this new circle of techo-savvy friends who seem to think he's cooler than the guys in our fraternity ever did.

One might suggest that I'm just jealous. Yeah, I've thought about that. If anything, I'm jealous that I'm the trained writer, and he's the one getting published regularly. But more than the jealousy, there's the George Costanza-independent George thing that has gone bad. Used to be, Chris was always looking for something to do. You could call him and say, "Hey man, what's up?" and before long, you were at a shooting range killing poor, innocent clay pigeons. But Mr. Cool-Guy Chris now has plans all the time. "Oh, I can't meet you, I'm going to Deep Ellum with some friends tonight." Used to be that I was one of his friends. Now, I'm a backup.

Enough of the whining, let's begin blogging.

Did I mention that I'm a trained writer? LOL, that sounds like a bad '70s movie when the dweeb gets jumped by badasses ... "Stand back, I'm a trained killer!" Don't let me get all uppity. I have a journalism and English degree. Whether it was a double major could be disputed. My original transcript said I was a de facto double major because I had enough English hours that an intended minor turned into a second major. Now that my alma mater (East Texas State University) has on-line transcripts, the notation is not there. So you be the judge - how bads is my writings?

I begin this endeavor aimlessly. I kinda like that. I don't have a purpose for starting a blog - no axe to grind (that's just whining about Chris), no product to subliminally push, no ego to stroke. I've always been fond of the idea of serendipity. The results, though, have proven to vary.

My desire with this blog is to wander into the stream-of-consciousness that my wicked mind flashes past my eyes and channels down to my fingertips. And then I'll leave some room for the occasional rant. Short of that, let's see where this thing goes.