Category: Life

The songs that were current when Richard Simmons made his first Sweatin’ to the Oldies video are actually oldies now.

And Richard Simmons is will celebrate his sixty-sixth birthday this year. But I sense that nothing makes him feel old.

My five-year-old came downstairs at six-thirty this morning. “I had a good dream,” he said, pleased.

“What did you dream about?” I asked. What kind of narrative would have he built in his nocturnal slumber?

“There were volcanoes.”

“Volcanoes?” I asked.

“We had ice cream,” he added. And that’s all I got out of him.

I’ve been blogging for over ten years now, but I’ve been sharing my opinion for longer than that.

In the late 1990s, I had a little email newsletter called “The Cynic Express(d)” which I sent out to a couple dozen people. I’d started it back when I was on America Online and fished out a list of people who had “cynic” in their profiles (I was spamming before spamming was cool, then uncool). I made a Web page to store and serve up these emails (and, as I mention often, I thought “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if I could just type the content in and have a database back-end serve up the content in the Web page?” thus inventing the blog except for the part where I put effort into inventing the blog). Instead, I hand-coded (hand-copied and pasted) each page as an HTML file. And when I redesigned the site, I’d have to hand-edit all the pages.

I moved off of AOL at some point and onto Postnet, which is the ISP that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran back in the day. At which point I hand-edited all the files and changed the URLs. (Frankly, I’ve never gotten relative URLs to work just right, so I’ve always relied on absolute URLs.)

At any rate, I have adjusted the URLs again and have made the site available again just as it was in 1999: Presenting, again, The Cynic Express(d) (Later, the Cynic Express(ed):

The site also includes a couple of book reviews and the columns I wrote for the Marquette Tribune (my college news paper) in 1991-1992.

Going back over them, I’m nostalgic for the times and anecdotes I cover in them. I’m also startled a bit about how much I’m going on about the same things that I do today. Government health care makes an appearance, of course, and Ellen Degeneres… Remember her sitcom was cancelled fifteen years ago. The real question I leave you with is… Why has Ellen Degeneres not aged in fifteen years?

UPDATE: Thanks for the link, Ms. K. Unfortunately, my old AOL pages seem to have eluded the Wayback Machine. But I’ve got them collecting dust on my current hard drive ready for exhumation in due time.

Hey, VftP readers, you’ve already heard me pitch my novel John Donnelly’s Gold and The Courtship of Barbara Holt, hey? They’re available for the Kindle at .99 or in paperback. I gotta keep flogging them if I want to get to the milestones of 100 copies and 6 copies respectively. Thanks!

So I was taking my urchins to school yesterday, and I was behind this pickup with a brake light out. He’ll never see it, of course, since he’s sitting in the truck with his foot on the brake when the failure occurs. I could have let him know by getting out at a stop light and tapping on his window, but that’s a good way to get an sudden leaden tracheotomy in these parts.

Then I thought to myself, you know, if only I could text to him based on his license plate. I’d send something to KC0WUT, and if he logged into it, he could get the message. He could also set his cell number to get the messages delivered as texts. It could be helpful for these sorts of “You don’t see it, but….” Kids–although kids don’t drive or cruise much these days–could use them while cruising to flirt. And, yes, there’d be a lot of griefers complaining about driving, but people would have to log in to get the messages, so it would definitely be opt-in in nature.

I told my beautiful wife about it over lunch, and we spitballed some requirements. She didn’t immediately tut-tut the crazy idea, so maybe it wasn’t so crazy after all.

And then Charles Hill, destroyer of dreams, posted a link to the story “‘Girls were desperate to track me (and my £170k Ferrari) down – so I invented an app to make it easier for them!’ Businessman, 58, launches service that finds dates using number plates“:

The app which allows admirers to contact any car owner in the country. All you do is sign up to the website or app and send a message or a ‘wave’ to any registration plate.

Kinda like what I imagined, but less focused on the getting-laid-because-I-have-a-Ferrari thing.

Come on, Charles, did you have to post it the same day I had the idea? Couldn’t you have waited a couple days?

Anyone want to hear again the story about how I thought up a database-driven Web content display mechanism that let users enter posts which were rendered in HTML in reverse chronological order in 1997? I have the ideas, but not the programming skill nor enough money to afford a Ferrari and a team of developers to implement them.

You Never Move Your Settler! – Opening Strategy Splits Civ V Studio:

“What?! Are you crazy?! You never do that! You fool!”

People got a little crazy during a routine design meeting in the Firaxis Games offices, where the developers of Civilization V take strategy very seriously. A designer talking about his recent playthrough to a large group of his gathered colleagues casually mentioned he didn’t like the starting position of his settler so he moved it that turn to look for greener pastures. The reaction was immediate. Half the designers in the room erupted in anger and disbelief – while the other half vehemently defended the move. They ditched what the meeting was supposed to be about, and instead argued for or against a specific move in the first turn of a Civ game. Clearly, this issue was very important. Sid Meier once said that all good games were a series of interesting decisions, and it’s a testament to the power of Civilization that even the first decision could evoke such a strong reaction in the current Civ team at Firaxis.

I don’t play Civ V because, well, when I got it, it challenged my computer, and, secondly, the Steam login every time I started my computer was a pain and its TSR components lingered and impacted my machine’s performance even when I wasn’t playing the game. Also, I’m feeling a little old to learn new game concepts after, what, a decade on Civ IV?

But I don’t tend to move my settler the first move unless I’m moving off of a desert or frost square onto a better grassland or plain square where I can still build my first city on the first turn.

I also have a host of other bad habits, such as playing the easiest level even after a decade on it. In Civ II, I am pretty sure I tried upping the difficulty, but I just dabble in this game, and a long (or short) frustrating learning-style game just wouldn’t satisfy me. So I also abandon a lot of games early when I don’t start in a strong enough position.

Because I’m doing this to be entertained, not to learn something.

With McDonald’s recent innovations in having double order boxes in their drive-through lanes but still only one set of windows, they’ve codified a practice that should fill them with shame: asking someone in the car to please pull forward.

Let’s unpack just how disparate these words are when jumbled together.

For starters, once you’ve been asked to park, it’s not longer a drive-thru. Man, how I hate to misspell it to keep up with the current marketing-based illiteracy. But if you park your car and someone brings you your food, it’s car-hop service, not a drive through. I go to a drive through because I want immediacy. I want to grab a sack of food I’ll regret later and be on my way. I don’t want a moment to reflect on the significance of signage at McDonald’s. If I had this much time, I’d have stopped at Sonic.

Priority? Obviously, my priority was continuing to keep in motion. If we’d adhered to my priorities, I’d be a mile or so down the county highway by now. No, my sitting here fits with McDonald’s priorities of getting more money in the cash register inside the window by shuttling people through with ever-increasing speed. Obviously, it’s past the point where they can adequately service the customers in a timely fashion. Also, note I’m parked in the second pull-ahead spot. I’m not even the top priority among the secondary priority customers.

A drive-through pick-up? The very concept wars with itself. And it’s not a pick-up except when I’m parked there. It’s a quick toss of a sack through the car window before the employee runs back into the McDonald’s before you discover the error in the order. At the normal drive-through window, you can sort through the sack and account for the received goods. If there’s a discrepancy–because, as Leo Goetz says, they make mistakes in the drive-through–you’re right there at the window to demand remediation.

When you’re at #2 Drive-Thru Priority Pick-Up and the employee has run back inside and out the back door for a smoke break, you’ve got to further impede your vehicular progress by exiting your car and going inside to get your missing cheeseburger.

Suddenly, your exclusive “priority” “drive-through” experience involves walking into the store.

Bah. I’m glad I’ve mostly put drive-through dining in my rear view mirror.

Tam K. on collecting the old-fashioned way:

(I’m not going the internet auction site route, because it always feels to me like the gun collecting equivalent of hunting over a baited field. It’d be like having a computerized database of exactly what old sports cars are in which barns across the country, or having clear wrapping paper on your Christmas presents.)

In all the various things I collect and/or accummulate, I generally limit myself to things I find in the wild at garage sales, estate sales, flea markets, and the occasional antique mall. I could hit eBay and fill out my collections easily and, sadly, start new collections too easily. But that’s so… cold. I get a lot of satisfaction in digging around and finding something on my own and holding it in my hands.

So much of collecting is hunting for things, of almost getting them but not quite. The thrill of finding a stash of Herb Alpert albums in an estate sale, the brief hope that it will include You Smile – The Song Begins but finding it only includes the best sellers from the 1960s. That little disappointment will sweeten the triumph if I ever do find it.

Collecting comes with stories about collecting. Stories about estate sales you’ve seen, different homes you’ve visited and explored while looking, different things you’ve bought. Ask me about my Robert B. Parker collection, and I won’t tell you about the advanced reading copies, television scripts, and limited edition numbered copies I bought on eBay. I’ll tell you about the hour and a half I spent in the 18-and-older back room of a downtown Milwaukee bookstore scouring through shelves of men’s magazines (blushing the whole time, I’m sure) to find a copy of the Gallery magazine from May 1984 featuring Parker’s short story “The Surrogate”. Thankfully, I found one and included it among a stack of other lesser books picked up because I hoped, foolishly, to camouflage the men’s magazine amongst them. But the clerk knew what I was doing. Of course he would.

Finding that sort of thing on the Internet ain’t collecting. It’s buying.

Also, let’s be honest, you don’t find bargains on Internet auction sites. Most of the power sellers know the maximum price the market will bear, and many of the inexperienced sellers price their articles above what the market will bear. What I want, I want cheap. Generally.

Hey, don’t you work for a company that helps collectors more effectively leverage the Internet to add to their collections? Yeah, I know. But my preferred style is still in-person. And the service will let me hunt for other people, which can be almost as fun as hunting for myself.

P.S. I was going to ding Ms. K for adding to her collection by going to gun shows, quipping that gun shows or any other collectible shows are the low-tech equivalent of Internet marketplaces, but I can’t take a collectior-than-thou stance here given my affinity for book fairs. Besides, shows are opportunities for fellowship, and Internet marketplaces are not.

P.P.S. To further undercut my point, during my research for this post, I found a copy of Gallery from May 1984 listed on Amazon for ten bucks. So I bought it. BECAUSE I MUST OWN THEM ALL.

Problematic headline: How Much Is That PC in the Attic?:

You know that old computer that’s been sitting in your basement for years? The one you’ve been meaning to throw away? Well, maybe your laziness will pay off.

Old computers, it seems, are becoming hot collectibles. And so are many of the items associated with them.

I won’t leave it to you to guess: The problem is that none of the collectibles mentioned in the article is a PC.

As you know, gentle reader (because you’re an old man, old man), PCs refer pretty specifically to computers running MS-DOS or Windows. Of course, the first PC was the IBM PC and then the IBM PCjr., and then the race was on in the late 1980s and into the 1990s as a bunch of manufacturers made PC ‘clones’ running the same software.

These things are commodity boxes with little fan loyalty or brand differentiation, so they won’t be collectibles like old Apples or Commodores or more esoteric things are. Come on, who’s going to pay anything for an old Packard Bell or Gateway? Really? Well, I’d pay a buck for them, and then I’d gut their components for handicrafts and dump the rest at the computer recycling shop.

The collectible stuff is the older, differentiated things with nostalgia value and brand identity. Apple, Commodore, Atari, and so on.

But, alas, you never see these things in garage sales anymore. All the basements containing them have been cleaned out already.

Everyone has heard of the five second rule (Wikipedia link for those callously excluded and oppressed by my use of the word “everyone” to imply “everyone good, intelligent, and moral” when that does not include you, you oppressed victim of my facile, lazy turn of phrase).

However, not everyone knows the five second corollary:

When transferring laundry from the washer to the dryer, if you drop a clean but damp article of clothing to the floor, it will not pick up dirt from the floor if you pick it up within five seconds. If you do, you can just throw it in the dryer.

Science.

UPDATE: Thanks for the , Mr. Hill.

A subject line fail from Apple:

I mean, isn’t kinda the thinking around the holiday that you are the great match for your Valentine?

I can’t believe I have to replace this belt already! I just paid $10 for this belt at Walmart three years ago and wear it almost every day.

Jeez, I’ve definitely turned a corner in aging gracelessly, ainna?

And don’t get me started on these cheap black sweatpants that I bought because I could not afford a gi when taking bujitsu in 1997. Can you believe they’re wearing thin in spots already?

Spotted in a shop:

It’s a decorative throw pillow.

That says Man Cave.

I’m not sure how the manufacture of this eldritch artifact did not immediately consume the entirety of the universe in some sort of instantaneous energy inversion triggered by the paradox.

UPDATE: Thanks for the link, Ms. K. Hey, VftP readers, check out my IT-themed comic heist novel John Donnelly’s Gold and my (allegedly) humorous play The Courtship of Barbara Holt, both available on Kindle for .99 or in paperback.

So there’s some fad going around school. Who knows how second graders get these notions in their heads? But my son has been talking about Poconos cards. All his friends collect them and pass them around and trade them. So he said, “Daddy, can I get some Poconos cards?”

Well, my son, through the wonder of eBay, you can. To surprise him, I picked these beauties up:

He might just have the most enviable collection of Poconos cards in his class.

As you might know, gentle reader, my beautiful wife and I are pretentious enough that our cats have literary or mythological names.

Retired names include Galt, Ajax, and Dominique. Our current group of prowlers include Tristan, Aurora, Roark, Athena, and Isis.

But I hereby announce my intent that we name our next cats in the following literary fashion: H.P. Lovecraft stories.

Come on, there’s scarcely a title here that’s not suitable for naming a cat. The best:

• The Thing on the Doorstep
• The Haunter of the Dark
• The Lurking Fear
• What the Moon Brings
• The Doom that Came to Sarnath

I’ll have to stop there, or I’ll republish the whole bibliography in a different order.

I’m so inspired that I want to go to the feline recycling center right now.

We’re thinking about getting a new automobile, and to be honest, I’m a little leery of it since it’s gone from mechanical systems that can fail due to the laws of physics to software problems caused by an intern forgetting a semicolon. This GM problem doesn’t make me feel better about the prospect:

General Motors is recalling 370,000 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups from the 2014 model year to fix software that could cause the exhaust components to overheat and start a fire.

. . . .

GM said eight fires have been reported, but no injuries.

Hoping to get a better score next time, GM advises:

The company is asking customers not to leave their trucks idling unattended.

You know, the best place to be when your automaker’s software is going the full Edgar on you is inside the vehicle, where software-controlled door locks and electronic windows won’t hamper your escape at all.

There’s a little black cat with white paws that lives down in the little wooded gully at the front of our property. He comes around the house sometimes, but shies away from us if he sees us.

I’m glad to see he’s made it through the recent polar vortex.

I just wish he wouldn’t do that. It annoys our cats and prompts them to mark their side of the door from time to time.

Who else could read the first sentence of a story entitled I Embedded with a Community of Meth Users and think of home?

Well, the first sentence is:

The trailer parks of Jefferson County, Missouri, are a far cry from the international cartels of Breaking Bad, but this is the real picture of meth in America….

I lived in just such a place.

View Larger Map

Although the mobile home I lived in at this location was not quite so nice. As a matter of fact, it was the most ramshackle one in Siesta Mobil Home Park and it undoubtedly melted in the rain sometime between then and now.

The empty pad to the northwest, there, is where the Hittler trailer was. I still have the table they left behind when they moved their trailer.

The tree on the little hill in the back there? My brother tore his finger up falling out of it one day right before we moved, and my mother made him wait with a compress before taking him to the ER because she was showing the trailer to someone interested in buying it. He followed her (and my father’s) footsteps into the Marine Corps, so perhaps she was toughening him up for it.

At any rate, I left the trailer park for the house in the valley down the dirt road in 1987 or 1988, and I left that house for good before the meth problem really took off. Kinda like I left the projects before the crack epidemic hit. Why, it’s almost like people don’t take my leaving very well.

(Link via Instapundit. Colorful youth courtesy my parents.)

After the somewhat saddening striking of the Christmas decorations, we have the annual hunt for the Christmas straggler, the decoration missed when decamping them.

This year, it only took me a day and a half to find it:

I know! You’re saying, Brian J., do you decorate your empty gumball machine every year? Truth of the matter is that I do not.

That particular decoration started on the tree until the new young black cat harvested it. After that, I hung it on a nail over the stairs that had remained without adornment in the four years we’ve been in Nogglestead. I received a Green Bay Packers wall hanging for Christmas, so I swapped it for the wreath on Christmas day and put the wreath on the desk downstairs so I’d remember to pack it up when we packed the decorations, and then….

A child hung the ornament on the gumball machine. As I did not decorate the gumball machine, I did not think to look on the gumball machine for decorations. But it could not remain subtly hidden for eleven months. Oh, no, this misplaced wreath had to announce its presence the day after the Christmas decorations were safely ensconced deeply in the short closet beneath the stairs, safely defended by the in-home vacuum hose hydra and bicycle trainer. To taunt me with how much work I’d have to undo and redo in putting it into the bin with the other ornamentation.

Needless to say, I have not yet undertaken that step. Instead, I’ve blogged about it. And by the time I get around to actually putting it away, eleven months might elapse.

In the other room, the boys were playing Lego Batman on the Wii, and the seven-year-old said to the five-year-old, “Stop freelancing!”

Was he offering his younger brother career advice, advising him to take a secure position instead of working as a contractor? No, he was repeating something Kelly Chase used to say (and still might).

When listening to Kelly Chase do color on St. Louis Blues hockey broadcasts, he’d say a defenseman who moved out of position to try to join the play was “freelancing.” Usually he said this when the opposing team took the opportunity to use that newly free space to attack the St. Louis Blues goal.

And sometime in their (continuing) youths, my children’s father took to tell them, usually when they were wandering a bit far from him in a parking lot, to stop freelancing and get back into position. I also tell them they have to have their heads on a swivel, another Chasism, when they’re in a parking lot.

So what the older youngster meant is that his brother, acting as the second player in the game, should follow his on-screen Batman instead of wandering to other parts of the screen.

Which is probably better than other colorful metaphors children could learn from old hockey players.

(Yeah, the blog is going all Linkletter of late. But the kids have been home on break, and they’re saying better things than our self-appointed betters in the capitals are. Also, trivia to connect Art Linkletter to the St. Louis Blues more tidily than I deserve: Art Linkletter was born in Saskatchewan.)