James was a little boy. Nine years old. We say “old”, as in “nine years old”, but nine years on earth is not a long time and does not make you old. Certainly not old enough to die.

One of my former co-workers had a son. His name was James. I think you can tell what happened.

Doing some research the best I can tell is that James had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, but the exact diagnosis is irrelevant at this point. Suffice to say, it was cancer. The Big Casino, as Uncle Junior called it on “The Sopranos”. Indeed. One never knows how Lady Luck is gonna deal the cards, and James got a shitty hand — years ago. And that’s the thing; all the time I worked with James’ mother, James was in remission. But somewhere in the last year while I was at my new job, the little idiotic cells were back at work and somehow gained a foothold once again in little James’ body. And a few days ago, they won. Stupid fucking cancer, the damned cells kill their own host. It makes no sense.

It makes no sense to read an obituary with the starting date in the year 2000, when it’s friggin’ 2010.

I attended James’ memorial service today, and it’s burned into my brain forever. There were speeches, many excellent speeches. James’ parents, grandparents, one of his teachers and four of his best friends all poured their hearts out in front of a huge assembly of sniffling, weeping, messes.

There was a slideshow, images of James. We watched and wept. Many images cycled through, images of an infant, a little boy. The locations changed, the clothing, the features, the scenarios. But after all the images were done, as the show faded to black, I was struck by how I had watched all these photos and never saw a photo of James as anything other than a kid, a boy. When my Grandmother passed away months ago, I watched a similar slideshow and I recall enjoying photos of an infant, a kid, a woman, a bride, a mother, a grandmother, a retiree. Where was James the teenager? For that matter, where was James the Prom King, James the husband, James the father, James the old guy? James mowing the lawn? James drinking a beer?

Alas, these photos cannot be taken.

It makes no sense.

So, I finally saw this movie I’ve been meaning to see for a while, “Art & Copy”. It’s a sad, disgusting (read: excellent) documentary about the collection of whores and egomaniacs working in the advertising business, and, by extension, about everything that is wrong with our society.

“By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising…kill yourselves…” —Bill Hicks

It was difficult to watch - painful, even; for a variety of reasons. Because my father’s best friend (Jim Durfee) is in the film; because my father, my mother-in-law, and college friend all work(ed) in that horrible business. Because I knew from an early age that my father’s profession had absolutely no nobility — getting paid large sums of money to figure out how to make people buy shit they don’t need. It’s disgusting.

And yet, this film glorifies these people — well, actually, the interviewees do a great job glorifying themselves, for ninety minutes, about all the Good Work they do — and the sick, sad infrastructure that is in place to support this behemoth. There are snippets of factoids presented throughout the flick, about how much money is spent on advertising annually in this country (billions and billions), and how many communications satellite launches annually are for commercial communications (most), but the overriding message — delivered by some of the biggest names/egos in the business — is even worse than Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is Good”, it’s “I can Manufacture Greed for you, for a Price (and an Expense Account)”.

$750K for thirty seconds to try and sell your shit on “American Idol” is all you need to know about what is wrong with this picture. Waste-wise, this kind of money on selling shoes and deodorant is second only to the kind of money we spend on weapons of mass destruction.

“What if we used all this money we spend on guns that shoot things that can fly down a chimney, on guns that can shoot food into the mouths of starving people in Africa?” — Bill Hicks (again)

Every American should see this film, but sadly I think the real takeaway will be lost on most. To me, “inspiring advertising”, which apparently is the kind all these assholes were congratulating themselves for “creating” (one even used the term “midwife”, swear to god) throughout the flick, is the most disgusting of all.

Hold it, just hold on a fucking second. The last several Olympics, summer and winter, have carried a certain sporting elitist criticism on various new sports added to the games. Sports like snowboarding and BMX have been derided by various idiots as not being true sports, presumably because the sports’ elite athletes utter words like “stoked” — or the more vehement “totally stoked” — to explain the inner workings of the sport. Frontside. Backside. Fakie. McTwist. Apparently these are unacceptable bastardizations of the English language, but somehow Slachow is perfectly acceptable conversation if you are listening to Scott Hamilton.

Well, this shit all annoyed me but I pawned it off as old school stupidity and narrow mindedness — until tonight, when an event called “Skeleton” was advertised; I tuned in.

Skeleton, Salchow, what’s the difference? The difference is that the latter is an old move that figure skaters do, something about inside edges and outside edges, and landing, and ice, and skates, and I’m bored already. The former, well, the former is not some Halloween prank or costume but rather a freakshow stunt that seems like it made its debut on the MTV show “Jackass” and not a “sport” worthy of any attention on national television or awarding of precious metal medals for the “best” performers of same idiotic activity. But there it is, skeleton, men’s and women’s events, on the TV, with people talking about it like it’s an actual sport. Medals awarded. Let’s compare and contrast “Skeleton” to another winter Olympic sport that proponents should question whether theirs is any more or less a sport than snowboarding or BMX, shall we?

Luge: insane thrillseekers pull through a standing start, then lay on their backs, and proceed to head, feet first, on rails at speeds of 70 MPH and steer — dubiously, I might add — with their legs while they careen down an ice chute toward certain death; winner is the one who gets down the chute fastest while remaining alive. People yell “whoo!”, and ring bells, in encouragement.

Skeleton: insane, moronic, retarded thrillseekers get a RUNNING start, then lay on their STOMACHS on a plastic tub attached to steel rails and proceed to careen, HEAD FIRST, on the same ice chute with little to no directional control, toward certain death; winner is the one who gets down the chute fastest while remaining alive and with their skulls still attached to their spinal columns. People yell “whoo!” and ring bells in encouragement, but the “whoo’s” and the bell ringing has this tentative feel to it, like they are being emitted by people who are feeling like they are about to witness a horrific, decapitating crash at any moment.

This skeleton shit, this is a goddamned freakshow, is what this is. And yet, the commentators talk about this insanity as if it’s a perfectly legitimate “sport”. My questions for these puppets are: Is Johnny Knoxville on the US team, maybe in a coaching capacity, and do they foresee a companion event where instead of using carbon fiber slabs to careen to certain death, they will do a variation of skeleton where they use shopping carts instead? I think it would be awesome to see those uniforms: maybe a red, white and blue leopard print thong or something — with scrotum padding of course.

What do you think?

Today is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”, and I for one am feeling a little celebratory. The importance of Darwin’s work cannot be understated. Last year, I took a couple of semesters worth of biology classes, and natural selection could be seen at work throughout those two very entertaining semesters, chapter after chapter, after chapter.

Evolution’s important shit, man!

That Darwin concluded what he did before modern genetics science existed, is a testament to his genius. That evolution can be called into question as “just a theory” by noted scholars such as George W. Bush, and that this stance is perceived as acceptable to any rationally thinking human being, is testament to the gullibility of the American Religious Confused.

And yet the Confused are organized, and powerful, and manipulative, and their members are looking for something to believe, so here we are, with fully 44% of Americans in a Gallup Poll indicating that they believe God created the Earth and everything on it about 10,000 years ago. Today, 44% of Americans believe this. This is the greatest advertising campaign ever. And like cigarettes, it’s a product the advertisers should be ashamed they are promoting. What I find ironic is that the creationists are borrowing heavily from Darwin’s work in the promotion of their agenda. Let me explain.

In evolutionary science, there is the concept of adaptation. This is both a process and a feature. Viewed long-term, adaptation is the process (over generations) where a species, uh, adapts to its environment in a way that increases its chances of continued survival. Viewed more in terms of output, an adaptation is a new or changed feature in a species — say, better eyesight, or faster-twitch muscle fibers, or changed color or markings on your fur, or any one of a billion changes that could randomly come about through genetic mutation, that somehow increases your fitness, your chances of surviving predation and passing on those genetic bits to the next generation.

Now, what’s happening over there, in church? Well, for a while the Book of Genesis worked, but this pesky “theory” of evolution started gaining traction because it was all sciency and stuff. One dude having an incredibly productive week just doesn’t stand up to the scientific method, and so we’re sorry, we simply will not teach that in public school (because, for starters, it is absolutely ridiculous). And so what has come along is a “scientific” alternative to evolution, so-called intelligent design, the whimsical notion that nature is so complex that there simply has to be a “designer” behind it all.

Intelligent design has been packaged as an alternative scientific reasoning, which of course is as oxymoronic as “military intelligence”. But you have to admit it’s clever marketing of a really dumb idea, so clever it appears as rigorously researched and defended science. Genesis was never gonna fly in a biology textbook, but ID just might, and that, my friends, is an adaptation!

So yes, even stupidity can evolve. This concept was brilliantly (and hysterically) extrapolated in the movie “Idiocracy”, and scarily is playing out in real-time right here in real-life, in 2009.

Our friends in the midst of a God delusion will never admit it, but the very formulation of ID is proof of Darwin’s work. Hopefully someday everyone will see the real truth and allow reason and rational thought to pervade everyday life, and relegate religion to the fiction aisle at the bookstore where it belongs. But appreciating the timescales involved in real evolutionary change, I know I won’t see it in my lifetime.

So today I’m going to resolve to enjoy the incredible evolutionary jackpot I was born into for as long as I can, and continue to be a Good Guy, and yes, smugly enjoy the fact that I don’t need a book or a congregation or a pile of dogma to tell me how to do that, or why I should.

Salut, Charles.

below is a photo I snapped while wandering atound MIT’s campus last month; apparently one of the greatest scientific institutions in the world feels old Chuck is engravement-worthy (I agree!).

Maureen Dowd’s Op-ed piece in the Times yesterday was just great.

As many Americans continue to struggle, Goldman, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase, banks that took government bailout money after throwing the entire world into crisis, have said they will dish out $30 billion in bonuses — up 60 percent from last year. The saying used to be, whatever happens, the lawyers win. Now, it’s whatever happens, the bankers win.

This kind of stuff just pisses me off, and it’s the kind of stuff that needs to be constantly brought to the surface because, well, because it does. And I was invigorated with a fresh dose of skepticism and hatred for these people, thanks to Ms. Dowd. Dare I say, MoDo is filling the giant void left in my Op Ed life by the sad departure of Molly Ivins.

And then today, I read in the NYT OpEd section a letter from the National Chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, whining about Ms. Dowd’s piece. It stems from the final paragraph of her editorial:

And as far as doing God’s work, I think the bankers who took government money and then gave out obscene bonuses are the same self-interested sorts Jesus threw out of the temple.

But, oh no!:

However unintentional, Ms. Dowd’s invoking the New Testament story to illustrate our current financial mess conjures up old prejudices against Jews. - Robert G. Sugarman

Jesus christ (invoked here as an expression of grief/disgust/rage, not asking for his help or anything (or trying to piss off any Jews)), this is the kind of shit that makes me crazy. Can we please keep our eyes on the ball, people? I realize Mr. Sugarman is just doing his job, but it irritates me that the Times ran the letter. On second thought, this seems a clear case of the Times’ Editorial Board just doing theirs, and, sadly, it’s not journalism. What does that say?

I knew this would be a fun World Series, with two teams I like in there, and a good matchup to boot. With a large percentage of my Facebook friends hailing from the Philadelphia area, I detected a certain bias toward the Lesser League’s team in the growing wave of “go team!” status messages over the last few days, and that’s to be expected. After all, trash talking is how we as fans can participate in the game.

Unfortunately, many of the sentiments expressed in the many Facebok status messages I saw last night ranged from infantile to eerily homophobic. Apparently, a favorite pastime is to call an opposing player a homosexual. For example, this zinger floated across my laptop screen last night:

“Gayrod is Cliff Lee’s BITCH!”

Is the implication that if you have one bad night offensively you become a homosexual? Kind of a “one, two, three strikeouts, you’re gay” standard? This seems to violate all logic and scientific research. And besides, with his statement, didn’t our Facebook scholar just implicate Mr. Lee as being a little light in the loafers too? After all, it takes two to tango, and I think that whether Cliff gave A-Rod a reach-around or not (which he does not mention in his comment), he’s gay, according to my little Facebook friend. So, there!

I’ve never understood this knee-jerk reaction to call the opposition gay. Hurling these random ad hominem (ad homonem?) attacks on teams when there are plenty of other suitable insults and jabs available just make you look stupid. Besides, everyone knows that it’s just the Boston Red Sox that are a flaming bunch of queers.

Personally, I’m looking forward to at least four more awesome games in this series, and great performances on both sides of the Great Baseball Divide. I think we truly have one of the best World Series matchups in years, and that both teams truly deserve to be there. This brings me to my second favorite idiot of last evening, the guy who said the Yankees were “overrated”. 103 wins is not an opinion, you homo.

Game Two tonight. Bring it.

Thank you Chase, for making my blood boil with rage enough to finally achieve enough inertia to log in to my long lost blog and post some bile. I should also give a shout-out to the asshole driving the cab to my hotel last week in Boston because that idiot is to blame for starting this little mess in the first place.

Hi everyone!

Yeah, so, I get in a cab at Logan and this guy takes me to my stately suite at the Holiday Inn; $23.30, the total. I swipe my card, feeling a pang of guilt over being so lazy (I probably had the cash, but didn’t feel like digging through my wallet). Should have known.

I navigate the prompts on the screen, approving the sale and gather my things as the screen thanks me for my business and the receipt machine up front whirs and ticks satisfyingly. The cabbie tears off the receipt and studies it. I hand him a five spot. He looks at me like I have a penis coming out of my left ear and asks me “what is this”? I say it’s his tip, impressed with my restraint. He claims I didn’t pay for the ride, that the receipt is missing a confirmation code or whatever. My overwhelming thought at this time is that a receipt came out of the damned machine, and so I’m all done here. The cabbie claims different.

I explain I’m not paying twice; I swiped a card, a touchscreen thanked me for my business, the machine printed a receipt and I forked over five bucks cash that can go unclaimed on a tax return for chrissakes, dammit, I’m done.

The cabbie’s not having it; a debate ensues, in the parking lot of a crappy Holiday Inn, in Cambridge. I make some good points, while the cabbie calls the cops. As I stand there watching this kid pretend to call the police, I decide it’s not worth the embarrassment arguing over twenty bucks in front of a crappy Holiday Inn in Cambridge and swipe again. I take both receipts. The cabbie complains that I didn’t believe him. I said I did not. And tonight, tonight, a week after that incident, I check my bank statement, and there they are, two charges for $23.30, for a business I will not cite out of privacy concerns. Let’s call them “Assface Cab Company”.

Phase Two: we call Chase’s “customer support” number. I summarize the workflow to date, which has no resolution and is comical if you are not me.

Call 1:
“Thank you for calling Chase…”
(I enter account number)
(I wait)
“how can I help you…”
(I explain)
(typing is heard)
“Thank you mister googleametty, I’m sorry for da inconvenience, but as we transition your account to Chase from WAMU we are experiencing some system maintenance and the system is unavailable…”
(I explain that I have been on the phone with this idiot for several minutes and that she could have told me to simply call back when the “system” was “available”, she retorts with nonsense and says to call back in 30 minutes to an hour.)

Call 2, thirty minutes to an hour later:
“Thank you for calling Chase…”
(I enter account number)
(I wait)
“please enter your tax ID number”
(yes, that’s right, they asked me for my tax ID number)
“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your entry…”
(I was cursing and yelling)
(I try hitting zero)
“Thank you for calling the service center. Our offices are now closed…”
(I verify that I called the same number as I called an hour ago, entering the same info, and then hang up)

Call 3:
“Thank you for calling Chase…”
(I enter account number)
“Please enter your four digit PIN…”
(OK, now I’m encouraged, because this is the prompt I got when I first called and spoke to the idiot; I enter my pin.)
“Thank you. For your checking account ending in 2938, your balance is $3,298; for your savings account ending in 9823, your balance is $728…”
(These are not my accounts, nor are the other ones I was given balances for. I hang up.)

So, that’s where we are at this point. God damn, I hate these people.

The upshot, as previously mentioned, is that I am posting again. Good lord, it feels good. My disdain for the general population simply can’t be explained in the construct of a Facebook status update.

I finished my last job on Friday, and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to start the new one the following Monday. Guess that means I start my new job tomorrow, and to say I’m excited would be an understatement.

Today was a study in change, an awakening of a dormant mind. I realized I had been on autopilot for months, if not years, and was unhappy about it. Sure, I chose to do something about it a couple months ago, but today I realized just how unhappy I was, how frustrated I was with my old bosses, how disillusioned I had become with my current work. Part of that stems from the way my bosses chose to handle my departure: with a sad display of childish ranting, and then, the silent treatment. I am still wondering how a couple of guys who built a company over 27 years can still behave like children, but no matter. They do not matter any more. Not to me, and not to my former co-workers, as a new CEO has been named (I have high hopes for the future of AEC, but alas I will not bear witness from the inside). Time to move on.

Today I went for a bike ride, the first of the season for me, I’m afraid. It was a nice easy spin along the foothills of the Rockies, and also took me past the Boulder Municipal Airport, which was buzzing with activity. This brought home the realization that I have not been enjoying my favorite activities, like cycling, flying, being in the mountains — hell, even just looking at the mountains. Then I came home and Brenda & I took Hooper out for a ride and then a bite to eat at our favorite pizza joint in Boulder. The couple next to us were in town from Madison, WI, househunting. The guy just got a job with a cycling advocacy outfit in Boulder and he was excited about moving to such a cycling-centric mountain city. I was excited for him too. It reminded my of my mood four years ago, and all these things started me wondering about what lies ahead:

My commute goes from a five minute bike ride to a 45-hour-plus drive or bus ride. My workday will lengthen, and my ability to come home for a lunchtime dog walk or dr appointment or whatever just went out the window. I know, I KNOW, that this commute cannot possibly be anywhere near as bad as my commute from Metropark to Penn Station in NYC, but it will still be an adjustment. One thought Brenda & I have is that ultimately we will move to Denver, which will make the commute shorter, place Brenda in much closer proximity to more work in the Denver area, and open up the possibility of us finally getting an actual house with an actual yard. So long term, that’s the carrot on the stick for me as I once again board the commuter “express” train to hell.

Commute aside, today made me realize how much we would be leaving if we left Boulder. The mountains, the mountains are just fucking spectacular, ok? It’s just not the same looking at them from Denver, when you can even see them from there. In Boulder, they are right there, you feel like you can kiss them from anywhere in town. The bike paths, the breweries, our friends, they are here. And yet, moving to Denver would enable us to buy a proper house and walk to Rockies games.

In the short term, Brenda has the Colorado Shakespeare Festival to attend to, and that is right here in Boulder. So we will mull this big decision over the summer and I will try to adjust to working at a national lab after being a consultant for fifteen years. Should be an interesting few months.

Almost as if to commemorate my new direction, I discovered Wolfram Alpha today, which is a mind expanding little playground that I have been having fun with this evening. Check it out. Talk to ya soon.

Brent Graber was a guy I casually knew, a co-owner of a fun little dog named Delaney.

Brent and his brother were regulars at the ballfield near my house where Hooper & I spend many an evening. Last month, while Hooper was recuperating from his knee injury, Brent got hit by a car and had been in a coma ever since. I found out about Brent’s unfortunate predicament a couple weeks after the fact, when Hooper & I returned to the ballfield. Ever since learning of Brent’s unfortunate turn of events, I had been keeping tabs on him through a website his family had set up, and silently held out hope for a recovery of any kind.

But tonight, at the ballfield where I had collected all of my personal experiences with Brent, I learned of his death. His injuries proved too great for his body and especially his mind; he passed away last evening, after spending the last month in a coma.

I am mostly sad for Brent’s family and close friends, as I was but a peripheral acquaintance. But at the same time, I am pissed off about the way his death came about, and at the way it has been reported and dealt with.

Brent was hit by a car from behind while riding his bicycle a mere quarter mile from my house. He was hit at night, by an 82 year-old. The newspapers reported the age of the driver, but also mentioned that Brent was not wearing a helmet and that his bike did not have a taillight or reflector. What was not reported—in the initial story or the initial “death report” news story— is whether or not the driver was in the shoulder, or in the lane she was supposed to be keeping her fucking car in, when she plowed into this 30 year-old guy and killed him. The papers mention that the driver was not ticketed, in a single sentence paragraph. I would assume that is an indirect way of saying Brent was in the middle of the lane when he was hit, but based on the way most bike-versus-auto accidents are reported, investigated and prosecuted, I seriously fucking doubt it.

The age of the driver and cyclist, the lighting conditions, and the fact that the cyclist was not wearing a helmet or that his bike lacked a taillight are important points. But so is the location of the 2,000 pound motor vehicle when it struck the cyclist. I would argue that that last fact is the most important one in fact, and it really pisses me off that that little detail has been consistently left out of the discussion. Why is that? Seriously; why the fuck is that? Seriously.

Brent was always smiling at the ballfield, always laughing at his and the other dogs whenever they did something silly, which is to say Brent was laughing all the time. He seemed to be enjoying himself in his life, and at 30 years of age, his ended too quickly.

I am pissed off about the way his horrible ordeal has been reported in the local papers and suspect we don’t know the entire story, but knowing the way Brent approached everyday life, I’m going to simply toast him now, and say “salut”.

I read a recent post on Lifehacker this morning about resume writing (no, I’m not looking for a job, I just read Lifehacker religiously), and readers were encouraged to post their own tips and peeves in the comments. I thought I’d share my thoughts here. (Can you smell the rant coming from there?)

First of all, when did listing your undergraduate GPA on the resume become fashionable? I have discovered, much to my chagrin, that there is a huge emphasis on grade point average in the veterinary school application process, but these people are reviewing applicants for the job of student, essentially. Further, it costs the grad school money to wash people out, so I can see how past performance on test taking is going to be a primary yardstick for a vet school applicant. But when I read a resume from someone looking for a job as a lighting designer and they point out to me that they got a 3.7384 GPA getting their friggin’ undergraduate degree, it makes that person look like a brown nosing, whiny little pest, and I don’t need that shit. I realize that people fresh out of school need to dig deep for stuff to put on a resume, but babe, look elsewhere.

My bigger issue is with people who list worldwide travel destinations under the “Other Skills/Interests” sections that these resumes always seem to have. Listing other skills and interests isn’t inherently bad; doing so can make you seem well-rounded, provide a peek at the rest-of-you and not just the worker bee, and can provide conversation starters for the interviewer. But I’m thinking more like “cycling, photography, playing guitar, travel”. Travel, not where you traveled. Travel is mind expanding, educational, humbling. You tell me you enjoy traveling, I’m gonna assume you are an open minded person who, unlike half this nation, sees that there is a world beyond the USA that should be explored. But you tell me you went to all these exotic places as a sidebar on your resume, well, I’m gonna assume you’re a giant dick. Here’s why:

First off, if you traveled the world and scored a 3.7384 GPA all during your undergrad career, there’s a strong possibility that you are a spoiled rich brat who doesn’t know what work is to begin with—not a good quality for a job applicant. But you also open yourself to the possibility of making yourself look like a fucking idiot who gained nothing from the travel experience. For example, when you list Chili (sic) as one of your globe trekking destinations, I’m assuming you learned absolutely nothing from your trip except how to find a McDonald’s in a foreign land. (Hey, anyone know if they have Chili’s in Chile?) By the way, the fucking idiot who wrote that he’d been to “Chili” on the real-live resume that he handed to me, in a real-live interview, for a real-live job—and who continued to prove my point here throughout the interview—did not get an offer. Fucking idiot.

Oh, and if you’re gonna have an “Other Skills/Interests” section, don’t let that be what makes your resume bleed to yet another page, and don’t list just “Music” as an interest. “Playing guitar” I will accept, but “Music”? Come on man, show some heart. It’s like putting “Food” down there. Might as well put “Air” and “Masturbating” in your skills and interests section, while you’re at it. “Family” and “Friends” are two other curious entries often seen in this section; are those skills, interests, what? Or are you just trying to tell me you’re not the next Son of Sam?

So. Drop the GPA bullshit and let potential vet students worry about that one, use that Skills/Interests section cautiously, and don’t be a giant dick, kids. I’m reading. And judging.