Posts from — January 2005

Attention, all who knew him: Miriam is putting together a keepsake memorial memento book, to contain all of the anecdotes from Bil’s memorial page on this site, along with other surprise bonus material. If you wish to contribute, you need to email your stuff to her right away.

Have a read here for more information.

“Dr. McCoullough, for the last time I am telling you: you cannot branch transfer to the Canadian Air Force.”

This nugget comes to you live and direct from my wife’s best friend. Apparently, she has been looking into alternatives, any goddamned alternative possible, to serving this moronic dimwit we have currently following orders from Dick Cheney. Initially, she thought the US Air Force would be a good benefactor for her medical schooling; who knew at the time that GWB would steal the first election after she started med school, and would only solidify his frightening Bob Jones U religio-scareyola biblical power base in the years to follow? Oh well.

She’d called to catch up on things as she drove home from her medical rotation, and we spent 20 minutes chatting about how much we both hate GWB, and how we really need to see each other soon. She and her husband are currently based in Texas, which is really, really funny because they are the most liberal people we know.

Eventually, I handed the phone to Brenda and they are still chatting. I love her, and her husband. Their kids are alright, I suppose. In a few years they will stop screaming and shitting and then maybe I’ll take a greater interest in their development.

Dierdre & Evan, I love you.

”…a year after the genocide in Rwanda I went there. The story had been bothering me, which is to say that in April of 1994 a program of massacres began in Rwanda that ended up claiming the lives of 800,000 in a hundred days. People were murdered at a rate that exceeded by three times the speed the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust. It happened in our time, in front of our noses, somewhat before our cameras. And it vanished very quickly. As soon as the blood was dry the story disappeared from the newspapers. Nobody really had explained it. When one read the papers it didn’t seem to me to make much sense. It was described as anarchy and chaos, which struck me as implausible simply because in order to kill at that clip requires organization, it requires method, it requires mobilization. It requires the opposite of anarchy and chaos. Mass destruction is not arbitrary, it doesn’t just come about willy-nilly. Those things interested me. So in other words, I felt the story was being told wrong, and casually and cavalierly, and that in some basic way a great calamity had happened which we were quite content to be ignorant of.”—Philip Gourevicth

The quotation above is from an interview Philip Gourevicth did with a professor at Berkeley several years ago. Philip is the author of the book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families, which is currently ripping my heart out. The genocide in Rwanda in 1994 is the subject matter of the recent film Hotel Rwanda, which Brenda & I saw this past weekend. Upon seeing that film, I was inspired to learn more about this awful page in our planet’s history, and Gourevitch’s book is one of two books I now have that I intend to read.

I am ashamed that it has taken me this long to realize the scope of this atrocity. The comedian Eddie Izzard does a bit about Hitler and Pol Pot, and how we just don’t seem to posess the mental capacity to really understand the enormity of a million murdered. I think he’s right:

“Pol Pot killed 1.7 million people. We can’t even deal with that! You know, we think if somebody kills someone, that’s murder, you go to prison. You kill 10 people, you go to Texas, they hit you with a brick, that’s what they do. 20 people, you go to a hospital, they look through a small window at you forever. And over that, we can’t deal with it, you know?”—Eddie Izzard

I am also inspired by Gourevitch’s writing. Thankfully, he is a man more curious than I—perhaps more cynical than I—and had the gumption to take a closer look at this story, and the skill to deliver its horrible truths with this excellent book. I want to be just like him.

The holocaust should never have happened. Rwanda’s program of genocide should never have happened. Cambodia, Bosnia, Somalia. Sudan. What the hell is wrong with us?

Remember the guy who always complained about his commute? He’s back.

I have tried to keep my complaints to myself about NJ Transit’s absolutely horrid service on the Northeast Corridor, but today I am forced to once again complain.

It was 13 degrees before wind chill outside, when I said goodbye to Brenda this morning. As her car sped off, I heard the announcement: “due to a broken down train, all trains bound for New York are subject to at least a 30 minute delay”. I noted the time and the cause of the delay, as both of these things tend to change as time goes on.

Waiting on the open platform, I adjusted my coat as best I could and hunkered down behind an advertisement for The Lion King. The Lion sheltered me from the wind which, while light, still brought the “feels like” temperature to about 5 degrees. After dutifully waiting the thirty motherfucking minutes, an announcement was made that a train just left Jersey Avenue, was making all local stops, and was already standing room only. To put a time reference on that for you, that meant that a train wasn’t likely to show up at Metropark for another 30 minutes, then would take almost an hour to reach New York City, and I may not even fit on it anyway. Oh, and now they were blaming the delay on old reliable: “signal and switch problems”. Motherfuckers, all of them. Every single goddamned one of them. NJTransit, you suck. You suck long and hard.

I headed for home. I didn’t have any reason to be physically in the office today anyway, so I decided to work from home. Since abject hatred only warms you up so much, I stopped in the QuickChek and got some cash, and tried to warm up a little. I was going to get a hot egg & cheese sandwich, but there was a woman arguing with the cashier over change, and four people behind her in line to pay, so I split. I covered the mile or so walk back to my house faster than ever; my heart stopped twice, I got ice on my beard, and my left ear cracked and fell off. But I made it home. I wore Emma like a hat for ten minutes, and I was 100%. It was time to call NJTransit’s complaint line. I know the number.

Here’s the thing: the customer service rep on the other end blamed this morning’s delays on a bridge strike (this is when a truck accidentally hits a railway overpass, and they enforce a speed restriction for the trains). So that made it three different reasons for the delays this morning. I knew I would get no satisfaction from complaining, but I never suspected that NJT would actually find a way to piss me off even more. I decided that, while I had this person on the phone, I’d go ahead and complain about the million and a half dollars these idiots spent about a year ago to give all the conductors cell phones. She told me that was for “Homeland Security”, which is funny, because not only is that a total bullshit answer, it’s also a different reason than they gave at the time they bought the phones. These guys just can’t get their stories straight. At that point I figured I’d end the call since I was only getting more upset. I promise, I didn’t call the bitch any names. I was very cordial, muttering something like “this is bullshit; we’re finished talking now” and hung up.

So now I start my workday, the only comfort being the knowledge that I’d probably just be getting to Penn Station right now had I tried to use my $188 monthly pass. What a rotten deal that is.

Brenda & I drove down to Princeton, NJ today to see the film Hotel Rwanda. We had to drive thirty miles to get to a theater that was showing this movie, as the eighty screens within the ten mile radius of our home were busy with the rest of the shit that is out there.

Regular readers of this website will probably not be surprised by the fact that I generally avoid movie theaters, as they tend to be filled with other people. But usually once a year or so Brenda & I are compelled to get out there and see something. This year it was Hotel Rwanda. I love Don Cheadle (and I’m pretty sure it was him that I held the door for at the deli around the corner from my office several months ago), and we’d heard good things about his performance in this film. The story, of course, was one that deserved real treatment.

This movie had my stomach in knots and me at the verge of tears several times. You want to cry for the 800,000 Tutsis hacked to death in 100 days, and what that says about the human race. Then you want to cry for the depth of our indifference—and what that says about the human race. You also want to cry when you realize that anyone can read lines from a script, and that real acting is an incredible gift, and that Don Cheadle has the gift, and you do not.

Playing the role of Paul Rusesabagina—who during the 1994 massacre saved over 1200 Tutsis from certain death by housing them in the hotel he was managing (and served as a consultant to this film)—Cheadle brings you into his world: this sick, anarchic place where his wife and children are targets for extinction because of their bloodline, he’s forced to bribe, con and beg for his family and friends’ safety, and where white travellers are being efficiently extracted from the whole sad situation.

In one scene following just another day at the Rwanda office, wherein he witnesses unspeakable horror, Cheadle plays a masterpiece. For perhaps a minute or so, no lines are spoken, and yet volumes are told. The information is flowing out of every wrinkle of his furrowed brow as he attempts to tie his tie—several times. He is a man struggling with the intensity and absurdity of the situation, and he finally falls apart. It is one of those moments you will always remember. (The last time I experienced an acting moment like that was watching Ellen Burstyn’s monologue to Harry in Requiem for a Dream, but I digress.)

Paul’s wife Tatiana is played by Sophie Okonedo, and she too has moments of brilliance, her eyes and face pulling me right into the scene with her. The only bit of “say what?” casting was that of Nick Nolte in the role of the U.N. peacekeeper, who I thought was completely overmatched by most of the rest of the cast, and it’s a shame because his character has one hell of a monologue.

Like The Killing Fields before it, this film delivers a horrible message: people can be really, really bad. I only hope I can somehow help make my corner of the planet a little better. I know that sounds corny, but it’s true. Go see this film, and you’ll be trying just a little harder too.

At the airport today:

Recently, my friend Darryl admitted that his dog had a page on Dogster.com, and after the intitial shock of realizing that my friend’s dog had a website, I immediately went to google to check for the existence of a feline equivalent. Naturally, there was one. I immediately vowed to add Ms. Emma The Wonder Cat to the world of Catster, and tonight I finally got around to setting that up.

Of course, we have thousands of other photographs of Emma— suitable for framing no less—which will be added to her Catster page with all speed. But for now, you should all swing on over to Emma’s Catster page and revel in the one photo that’s there now, because she is cuter than all of the nearly 18,000 other cats currently loafing on there. In addition, you can enjoy the sometimes bizzare Google-algorithm-selected, targeted advertisements located in the right-hand column of the page. After all, it’s not often that you are visited by wallet suitors playing the Jane Austen/urinary disfunction angle.

As I type this, Emma is coiled on the couch, staring at me. And she is excited, because she knows I recently aquired a new camera.

Cheese!

To me, the beach is a place to be avoided at all costs. From an early age, I can remember the beach as a place where a guy was expected to remove his shirt and walk around in public. As if that weren’t bad enough, you were then expected to haul large amounts of crap across vast expanses of hot sand, set up camp (camping being another thing I just don’t do well) and proceed to bake in the sun, or try to read a book while being subjected to the myriad distractions of screaming babies, overweight people slathering themselves with lotion, and people playing football on sand, when everyone knows you’re supposed to play football on a gridiron. Perhaps you might relieve the boredom by attempting to “enjoy the water”; this entails wading—shirtless, again—into the ocean, stepping on horrifyingly spiny deep sea creatures, and ill-fated attempts at surfing with a blow-up raft. You end the day celebrating your love of the beach with a spirited and self-conscious shower in an outdoor stall by the garage, blasting sand out of your ass and ears. You spend the rest of the evening nursing a raspy throat, owing to the gallon or so of salt water you swallowed while out enjoying the water.

No, I’ve never quite understood the appeal of the beach in the summertime. But that’s not to say I don’t get the lure of the ocean. Sure, there’s something about the sound and rhythm of the surf that’s calming. There’s a definite leisure vibe that hums from the sand, and the houses on stilts tell you you’re not at home. I’ve often thought that the shore towns of New Jersey would be great to visit when there weren’t so many damned people running around, shirtless, trying to bake themselves to a nice golden brown.

This weekend, I got find out. It’s great.

Brenda has been working hard lately, and a quiet weekend was in order. A family friend has a nice place on Long Beach Island. Connect the dots, people.

Long Beach Island is an eighteen-mile long spit of land off the coast of New Jersey, fronting the Atlantic Ocean. It is south of a good part of NJ, and many people from the Philadelphia suburbs also head there every summer, who roughly parallel the location. And yet, New Jerseyans north and south all describe the direction of their beach sojourns as going down to the shore. Never mind that just as many go over to the shore as go down to the shore. The inability of most New Jerseyans to accurately describe their vacation vectors is annoying enough, but most beach goers are also grammatically lazy. So, to New Jerseyans, the act of heading down/over/up to this beach resort in southeastern NJ is universally referred to as “going down the shore”. Not to the shore, just “down the shore”. This has annoyed me for decades.

The sights and sensations on the drive down to the shore were foreign; no traffic, no boats on trailers that take up a lane and a half, no tops down on the convertibles. Arriving at Long Beach Island Boulevard, we hung a right and headed south. At first, we thought perhaps a storm had damaged the traffic signals; they were all flashing yellow in our direction. Then it dawned on us: they must switch to a more pastoral traffic signal protocol in the off-season, adopting the small-town ethic of “just be careful” at the intersections. The roadway supported this, as there was scant traffic about. There was no one here. I was in love, in love with the shore. For the first time in my life, I was happy to be down (at) the shore.

Today Brenda & I walked on a nearly empty beach; when we first arrived at the waterfront, there wasn’t a single other person, as far as the eye could see, in either direction, and in the five miles of beachfront we covered during our walk, we passed probably a dozen people and about four dogs. In July, you’d be well past twelve people before you’d ever caught your first glimpse of waves. And while most of this weekend was overcast, for some reason the clouds completely disappeared last night, and we were treated to an amazingly brilliant night sky. I haven’t seen that many stars—and so bright—in a long time. Looking at the houses that evening I couldn’t count even one light on, in any homes. It was eerily cool.

We got a late start yesterday and wanted to get back early to give Emma her medicine tonight, so this was a very brief beach blitz. But it was a fun sort of time-out, and I have a new perspective on the Jersey Shore. I guess you can add this to my long list of oddities: I prefer the beach in the wintertime, and the mountains in the summertime.

For three years, this Powerbook has been my daily companion. I bought it in January 2002, with the hope that OS X’s UNIX underbelly combined with OS X’s typical Apple desktop friendliness would finally help me get over initial hurdles of learning Radiance. I was not disappointed.

Over the years, I have perhaps outgrown the speed of this one, at least for Radiance simulations. But I have grown to love OS X and of course Apple’s product design is rarely hard to look at, and for pretty much everything else besides serious lighting simulation this thing is a dream, so I’ve kept it close by my side at all times, for three years, which is some kind of record for me as far as gadgets are concerned. But my little companion has grown long in the tooth: the “titanium” finish on the side rails and the lid hinges had long since flaked off; there is a shiny spot in the middle of the trackpad from god knows how many miles worth of fingertip swipes; lately my Airport bandwidth has sucked; the power supply has two weak spots in the cords so the power cuts in and out depending on how the cable is laying; and worst of all, it has developed an annoying quirk where every once in a while the display is all wonky when you open the lid and wake it from sleep. Usually a wiggle of the lid fixes the problem, but still.

I have been living with these various maladies because it seems like too much trouble to send it back for service, but as the clock wound down on my three year warranty—a warranty I paid extra for—I decided to see if I could actually get something for my extended warranty coverage.

Today I got it back. Here’s the deal:

• Power Supply – Brand new one, no questions asked. Great.

• Finish problems – They replaced the entire center section of the case as well as the top part, trackpad and all. It actually looks like a brand new computer! Wow.

• Airport bandwidth – still sucks. Like, it really, really sucks.

• Display problem – this was an intermittent problem, so I guess I really don’t know for sure if it’s fixed yet.

Now, here’s the rub. Apple claims that all my non-cosmetic problems were caused by the extra 256MB 3rd party RAM I installed. Once the techs removed that from the system, supposedly all tests passed. The extra RAM was slipped in a anti-static bag and stapled to the repair report, and I was told to not reinstall it or the 90 day warranty on this repair would be void.

Hmmm. Let’s see, the RAM in question was installed by yours truly about three minutes after I liberated this thing from its box three years ago. I realize RAM sometimes just goes bad. Thing is, the RAM they took out and looked down their noses at, is made by the EXACT SAME MANUFACTURER as the RAM that came with the system!

So now I only have 256MB of RAM in this computer, which is enough to boot the OS and load my web browser, but not much else. Do I believe them about this RAM? I dunno. Maybe I’ll try and see if Crucial will replace the memory module that Apple claims is the source of all my problems.

That still leaves the network bandwidth problem, as well as a new
problem: the keyboard now seems to be too big for its home. That is to say, there’s a little flex to the thing now, it’s in compression the whole time, so whenever I hit anything in the vicinity of the ‘d’ key there’s a “thump” as the keyboard settles down onto the surface it’s supposed to be resting firmly upon normally.

So, at the moment, Apple scores, like, I dunno, like a fifty. Non-pass. I’m thrilled they processed the repair so fast (Airborne picked it up on Wednesday, and it was sitting on my desk when I came to work this morning), thrilled they fixed all the cosmetic shit, happy about the new power supply. But that’s kinda what is supposed to happen with a warranty. Besides, the real problem(s) remain, and a new one has come to call, and I have less RAM in my system to boot, goddammit.

It’s a mixed bag, and as I type this, I’m growing increasingly pissed off at this keyboard thing. So you can bet there will be a few phone calls next week between Apple, and Crucial, and whoever else gets fingerpointed.

Dammit. Screw this. I’m going to the beach.

Well, my friend Jeff uploaded his pictures from the 2004 Karaoke Madness Event I recently wrote about. While you can go directly there and snag yourself a fine snap of me blowing out my vocal cords, I recommend you also spend some time browsing Jeff’s other fine galleries. He’s very talented.

The images, as they should, speak for themselves.

Once again, bravo to all who attended. I am holding a lighter in the air for you all, right now. Y’all rock.