I ran across a small white pill in the apartment as we were cleaning up. I looked at it, and asked Sandy what she thought of it. She guessed Prednisone. I guessed Claritin. It looks a lot like a 10mg Prednisone or Claritin, so I figured those were both good guesses. However, there is a very distinct difference between pred and claritin: pred tastes like gangrenous ass skin grafts. Note my experience with said grafts is limited to that defined in zombie literature (great link, you totally should read it).
Anyways, I put it to the taste test, running my tongue along it to see if I recognized it. Immediately. "That's not pred, that's klonopin! Cool!"
However, one does not simply start munching drugs found about the house. When I got to the new place and checked up on it, I discovered, sure enough, I had found klonopin in the house, and discerned it from Claritin or Prednisone, by taste.
Either very cool, or very sad. At any rate, I should be able to get some goddamn sleep now. :)
07 April, 2007
06 April, 2007
Fever
Sandy and I have been really sick. Last night she spent most of the night at triple digits, alternating between being way too hot and way too cold. Tonight was my turn. I haven't had a fever like that since AOL. One day I left the office in the middle of summer, turned the heat on in the car to 90F, and was still shivering. This is the pits.
04 April, 2007
aaaaaaaaaaah!!!!
Interviews! Coming out of my ass! This is such a pain! I don't think I've ever had so many so close together. Certainly not in so many different locations! And this time, I don't really have any I don't want to take. Bunches of stuff I like! And, you know, moving, and having serious insomnia, too.
Ack!
(it's good to be wanted, I guess)
03 April, 2007
I am a hack.
(rss people: the date on this is 4/3/07; it actually cleared "drafts" because I realized it was "done" and contrasted nicely to the entry of today, 1/6/09)
Yes, I am. I don't even have a following. Let me add just a couple comments. First, I did throw a stone – I called somebody loathesome (and misspelled it, even) – and was subsequently called a "hack" and "jealous unpublished author."
I wish to qualify loathsome. I do not think that the relationship between a man and his – his words, not mine – special needs daughter is loathsome. I don't think that either of those people are. I don't even really find the weblog itself to be loathsome. I find the whole cryfest jerkoff itself to be loathsome. The opposite of this is also true. I've read enough goddamn stories of how somebody triumphed instead of having a cryfest jerkoff, and I'm not really interested in more. I find it especially disgusting that authors are being made from weblogs, and not the other way around.
Let me also address the "jealous unpublished author." As I do from time to time, I need to quote myself, to put this in perspective for people who "read a couple of [my] entries."
These are the two things that got my attention most directly. However, I think anyone with a reasonable IQ who works in defense has these moments from time to time. Because I'm a hack, I'll quote Dyson. After all, I could certainly choose worse people to steal from, right?
All the stuff that was deeply troubling me, all of Dyson's surrendered moral principles, were there in those pieces of data. And I began to collate them. Because one cannot say "I've seen what a metric ton of HE does to a building" without either addressing – or suppressing – how they feel about it. I firmly believe it is not possible to divorce, cognitively, that association. And so I began to write about death. I began to write about the industry. I began to write about $15,000 dinners and engineers who spent all day killing people without really realizing it (the pointy end of the sphere vis a vis the pointy heads, to paraphrase a dinner conversation with a friend).
I realized I knew all these people, all these events, all this technology. I didn't have to fudge anything to really say what I wanted to say: that it's a sickening, frightening industry. I, like many people in the business, am very good at what I do. So, I fit into this role easily. So did Dyson. So, too, did Dyson justify his involvement with the war in saving the "friendly" lives. So, too, with Dyson, did that ring hollow.
And so, my book is my penance. It's a book that, for me, is to get all the spooky shit out of my head. The only way to do it without getting people killed or hurting companies is to produce fiction that represents ideas and caricatures of people and places, without going into specifics. I assure you, this is enough for me.
So, what then? A cryfest jerkoff? If I had instead decided to publish some Bob Lazar "evil genius vaguely associated with the government tells all and sells the dirty womens' underpants" book, I suspect people would have been slavering to read all the gossipy details. They want to know what stupid Colonel said what completely insipid thing over dinner.
No, instead, Ipublishwrite a book foremost for myself. Because I have to get the shit out of my head, off my chest, etc. And it genuinely helps to have these conversations with myself, even if you think I'm a hack, and nobody reads them (yes Dan, the voices do talk to me).
Now, watch as I deftly compare myself to Dyson here: Suppose, for a second, that I write a book. A hack of a book, a cryfest jerkoff of a book, shrouded in sharks with lazerbeams on their heads, glittering space elevators, and references to every cockamamie idea in military science fiction. Let's even call it a John Birmingham quality military fiction book. But, let's say that one person: somebody like me, somebody who is "ready to turn their asses to glass" (I'm sorry, ...), fucking gets it. Do you think Dyson was actually writing Disturbing the Universe (or the pieces in The New Yorker) to jerk himself off, that he believed he had something really important to say? No, in fact, his prose is self-deprecating from start to finish:
It's not about being a fucking Hemingway or a Tanizaki. It's about catharsis, redemption, and maybe, teaching.
Back to the cryfest jerkoff. Let us suppose that I instead write a book about how engineers have a very high rate of suicide, have very high incidences of intractable depression, of bipolar disorder, psychosis, and other niceties, and that I wrote an Oliver Sachs book about An Engineer on Mars and Other Stories About All Them Put Upon Engineers. They've all got their own monsters, and really, it would be great if all the Lance Hornes of the world could read about the horrific shit they do to people in the field.
But what have you accomplished? Pricks will be pricks. Maybe you reform a Lance, or you reform a Mike Paynotta. Maybe they go forth in life with halos atop their heads and plumeria spouting from their asses. So fucking what? Furthermore, if you tell me that you started out with a weblog (hey, no complaints here, this is where the emokid and the gothfag roam, afterall), and then somebody thought that cryfest jerkoff was SO FUCKING POWERFUL that every post-partum mommy out there had to read about it, well, I'd probably vomit on the spot.
Not because your cause is invalid, or you have an image problem, or anything like that. Because frankly, I am cool with saving engineers from the Lances and Mikes out there. I'm cool with helping people on the fringes of society with neurological diseases (including BPD, ...). But for fuck's sake. It's been done.
Maybe, possibly, a Dyson will come along with a message that sticks (Dyson got to me. Eloquent and intelligent he may be, he didn't succeed because we're still bombing the fuck out of eachother). Why not push my effort (or theirs) out to the people likely to read whatever drivel I manage to commit to paper? Hell, even putting it to paper and reading it myself might convince me that I should quit the whole enchilada and teach for a living. In my book (heh), that's a win for the whole endeavor.
There's pity, and there's sociological commentary. I don't need to read anything more about Joseph Merrick. But I really think we all – humanity – can benefit from people like Dyson, people stuck in the war machine that propels so much of the world, speaking out and saying "hey, millions of people have died. millions more will. let's, maybe, you know, stop this."
Lastly, and I hate to tack this on to the above, but I started writing here (at Blogger vs Advogato) to keep track of my writing. And then it became why I wasn't writing. Things like, oh, having my lungs fill with fucking AIDS. Things like that. And then I realized, just fold in all the old advogato shit, have it all searchable and metatagged, and it's even more useful for me. So the fact that I haven't "got a following" doesn't bother me in the fucking least. This is for me. Because people say to me when they haven't seen me in a few weeks, "hey, what have you been up to." Now I don't have to roll my eyes and go into the schpiel that I already laid out here.
So, it's not for you. I'm a fucking hack. I don't write books for you, because they are good, because they are publishable, or even because I have some very sad story to tell about my life. I write for me. I write this journal for myself, and occasionally because I think things like gun ownership and the modern feudalism require a more public face (when was the last time you actually heard a renter speak up? a concealed carry permit holder?). And, again, that's all really just convenience for me. I don't have to howl from the treetops if I just sit here and... hack.
Yes, I am. I don't even have a following. Let me add just a couple comments. First, I did throw a stone – I called somebody loathesome (and misspelled it, even) – and was subsequently called a "hack" and "jealous unpublished author."
I wish to qualify loathsome. I do not think that the relationship between a man and his – his words, not mine – special needs daughter is loathsome. I don't think that either of those people are. I don't even really find the weblog itself to be loathsome. I find the whole cryfest jerkoff itself to be loathsome. The opposite of this is also true. I've read enough goddamn stories of how somebody triumphed instead of having a cryfest jerkoff, and I'm not really interested in more. I find it especially disgusting that authors are being made from weblogs, and not the other way around.
Let me also address the "jealous unpublished author." As I do from time to time, I need to quote myself, to put this in perspective for people who "read a couple of [my] entries."
I haven't really been writing too much, except that in the last couple days I've started a short story and the "darker" book. I fully intend with Limits to kill thousands of people. No question. But they will seem to have died for a reason. I don't have a name for the darker book, but I am leaning towards Sharks. People will die, again, and again, and again, and again, in Sharks, and people will lose their sanity, piece by piece. Almost like, hmm, Resident Evil. Once the infection starts, the carnage begins, and just. doesn't. end. Add in a healthy dose of paranoia, and you have a book that is wholly unpleasant to read. And yet, I think it is a book that many will not be able to put down.So, I am probably a hack. I started writing a book because I realized that my job involved connecting the pointy end of the spear with the bad guys. I woke up one day in a car along the Potomac (GW Parkway for the locals) and I realized that I was writing software that delivered bombs to badguys. Whoa. A couple years later, I had another moment, when I realized that I had changed from actually getting the bombs onto the planes and getting the planes fueled and in the air to actually guiding cruise missiles to targets.
...
This means I am writing a book I like. I think this is a good thing. I am after all, writing the book for myself. But also, since I do read so much, I think this means I will have some broader appeal than myself. Maybe it will work commercially.
...
It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't have a "day job." I wish I could afford to do this for another few months. It would be very sad if I stopped writing when I go back to work.
...
Strange. They don't know what I'm writing, other than it's fiction. And those that have said they'd like to read the book, well, depending on how well you know me, you might not like to read 120,000 words that came out of my head. I'm not writing this book for anyone but me. If it gets published, hooray, that's great. I'll never get rich, and you can't make a movie out of it because it is just so brooding, sullen, and mean. I can self-publish, and put a copy of my book on my shelf. And that will be good enough for me.
These are the two things that got my attention most directly. However, I think anyone with a reasonable IQ who works in defense has these moments from time to time. Because I'm a hack, I'll quote Dyson. After all, I could certainly choose worse people to steal from, right?
I began to look backward and ask myself how it had happened that I had let myself become involved in this crazy game of murder. Since the beginning of the war, I had been retreating, step by step, from one moral position to another, until at the end I had no moral position at all. At the beginning of the war, I believed fiercely in the brotherhood of man, called myself a follower of Ghandi, and was morally opposed to all violence. After a year of war, I retreated, and said, Unfortunately, nonviolent resistance against Hitler is impracticable, but I am still morally opposed to bombing. A few years later, I said Unfortunately, it seems that bombing is necessary to win the war, and so I am willing to go to work for Bomber Command, but I am still morally opposed to bombing cities indiscriminately. After I arrived at Bomber Command, I said, Unfortunately, it turns out we are bombing cities indiscriminately, but this is morally justified as it is helping to win the war. A year later, I said, Unfortunately, it seems our bombing is not really helping to win the war, but at least I am morally justified in working to save the lives of the bomber crews. In the last spring of the war, I could no longer find any excuses. ... I had surrendered one moral principle after another, and in the end, it was all for nothing.So I did what many sane men do: I took the death I could calculate in my head (a TLAM has a warhead how big, there are how many of them in the air, they have what level of accuracy, how many are used in a given strike, how many such strikes are used in a given conflict, what is the rate of replenishment for the weapons), and I put it to paper. Initially it was tattered pieces of data floating about my computer, just ideas I'd had. But I knew I was doing something important.
All the stuff that was deeply troubling me, all of Dyson's surrendered moral principles, were there in those pieces of data. And I began to collate them. Because one cannot say "I've seen what a metric ton of HE does to a building" without either addressing – or suppressing – how they feel about it. I firmly believe it is not possible to divorce, cognitively, that association. And so I began to write about death. I began to write about the industry. I began to write about $15,000 dinners and engineers who spent all day killing people without really realizing it (the pointy end of the sphere vis a vis the pointy heads, to paraphrase a dinner conversation with a friend).
I realized I knew all these people, all these events, all this technology. I didn't have to fudge anything to really say what I wanted to say: that it's a sickening, frightening industry. I, like many people in the business, am very good at what I do. So, I fit into this role easily. So did Dyson. So, too, did Dyson justify his involvement with the war in saving the "friendly" lives. So, too, with Dyson, did that ring hollow.
And so, my book is my penance. It's a book that, for me, is to get all the spooky shit out of my head. The only way to do it without getting people killed or hurting companies is to produce fiction that represents ideas and caricatures of people and places, without going into specifics. I assure you, this is enough for me.
So, what then? A cryfest jerkoff? If I had instead decided to publish some Bob Lazar "evil genius vaguely associated with the government tells all and sells the dirty womens' underpants" book, I suspect people would have been slavering to read all the gossipy details. They want to know what stupid Colonel said what completely insipid thing over dinner.
No, instead, I
Now, watch as I deftly compare myself to Dyson here: Suppose, for a second, that I write a book. A hack of a book, a cryfest jerkoff of a book, shrouded in sharks with lazerbeams on their heads, glittering space elevators, and references to every cockamamie idea in military science fiction. Let's even call it a John Birmingham quality military fiction book. But, let's say that one person: somebody like me, somebody who is "ready to turn their asses to glass" (I'm sorry, ...), fucking gets it. Do you think Dyson was actually writing Disturbing the Universe (or the pieces in The New Yorker) to jerk himself off, that he believed he had something really important to say? No, in fact, his prose is self-deprecating from start to finish:
Woe, what a fuckup I was. Smart guy, wrong path, killed people. Please, just realize that in all this cool physics and math talk, there's a HIDEOUS STORY OF FIREBOMBINGS IN DRESDEN.
It's not about being a fucking Hemingway or a Tanizaki. It's about catharsis, redemption, and maybe, teaching.
Back to the cryfest jerkoff. Let us suppose that I instead write a book about how engineers have a very high rate of suicide, have very high incidences of intractable depression, of bipolar disorder, psychosis, and other niceties, and that I wrote an Oliver Sachs book about An Engineer on Mars and Other Stories About All Them Put Upon Engineers. They've all got their own monsters, and really, it would be great if all the Lance Hornes of the world could read about the horrific shit they do to people in the field.
But what have you accomplished? Pricks will be pricks. Maybe you reform a Lance, or you reform a Mike Paynotta. Maybe they go forth in life with halos atop their heads and plumeria spouting from their asses. So fucking what? Furthermore, if you tell me that you started out with a weblog (hey, no complaints here, this is where the emokid and the gothfag roam, afterall), and then somebody thought that cryfest jerkoff was SO FUCKING POWERFUL that every post-partum mommy out there had to read about it, well, I'd probably vomit on the spot.
Not because your cause is invalid, or you have an image problem, or anything like that. Because frankly, I am cool with saving engineers from the Lances and Mikes out there. I'm cool with helping people on the fringes of society with neurological diseases (including BPD, ...). But for fuck's sake. It's been done.
Maybe, possibly, a Dyson will come along with a message that sticks (Dyson got to me. Eloquent and intelligent he may be, he didn't succeed because we're still bombing the fuck out of eachother). Why not push my effort (or theirs) out to the people likely to read whatever drivel I manage to commit to paper? Hell, even putting it to paper and reading it myself might convince me that I should quit the whole enchilada and teach for a living. In my book (heh), that's a win for the whole endeavor.
There's pity, and there's sociological commentary. I don't need to read anything more about Joseph Merrick. But I really think we all – humanity – can benefit from people like Dyson, people stuck in the war machine that propels so much of the world, speaking out and saying "hey, millions of people have died. millions more will. let's, maybe, you know, stop this."
Lastly, and I hate to tack this on to the above, but I started writing here (at Blogger vs Advogato) to keep track of my writing. And then it became why I wasn't writing. Things like, oh, having my lungs fill with fucking AIDS. Things like that. And then I realized, just fold in all the old advogato shit, have it all searchable and metatagged, and it's even more useful for me. So the fact that I haven't "got a following" doesn't bother me in the fucking least. This is for me. Because people say to me when they haven't seen me in a few weeks, "hey, what have you been up to." Now I don't have to roll my eyes and go into the schpiel that I already laid out here.
So, it's not for you. I'm a fucking hack. I don't write books for you, because they are good, because they are publishable, or even because I have some very sad story to tell about my life. I write for me. I write this journal for myself, and occasionally because I think things like gun ownership and the modern feudalism require a more public face (when was the last time you actually heard a renter speak up? a concealed carry permit holder?). And, again, that's all really just convenience for me. I don't have to howl from the treetops if I just sit here and... hack.
02 April, 2007
ASN and their effect on Chinatown
I had no idea the units in Chinatown were quite this expensive.
And yes, I think that's three posts today. Blame the Harney & Sons Irish Breakfast tea, which is really just Assam in disguise. Silly me, I thought I was monitoring my caffeine intake, and forgot that the tea itself is, you know, black tea.
(edit: fixed link, thanks to H&S!)
And yes, I think that's three posts today. Blame the Harney & Sons Irish Breakfast tea, which is really just Assam in disguise. Silly me, I thought I was monitoring my caffeine intake, and forgot that the tea itself is, you know, black tea.
(edit: fixed link, thanks to H&S!)
Moving subtleties
So, one of the things that comes up every time we move is guns. We are of course licensed to carry, legally own, and properly lock all our weapons, be they handgun, rifle, shotgun, etc. But there are some quasi-legal problems with this. So let us say that we legally own guns, and that we can legally (by way of permit) carry them in the trunk of our cars (or in the back seat, or whatever). And of course I can have them in my home. But what of the area between my home and my car?
If I live in an apartment, they can create terms within the lease (and they do) which state things like it is a violation of the lease to carry a firearm in an open or public area. It is a violation of the lease (and they will call the police, yada yada) for brandishing a firearm in a public or open area. So because I have a concealed carry permit, I can actually conceal the weapon, and carry it from my apartment to my car without violating their lease or the law. However, it seems to violate the spirit of the lease, if not the letter.
Of course, they can't actually tell me what to do in my apartment, despite their attempts to do so:
Thank you for your email.
Let me take this time to remind you that housing firearms in your apartment is a violation of your lease. As stated in item 17. of your lease titles Prohibited Conduct,
"Resident, the other occupants and Resident's guests or invitees may not engage in the following...displaying or possessing a gun, knife or other item which is intended to be used as a weapon."
Furthermore, on page 12 of the Resident Services Directory it states, "Carrying, displaying or discharging fireworks, guns, slingshots, or any type of firearm or weapon is strictly prohibited. Violation of this policy by any resident, occupant or guest will result in the immediate non-curable termination of the lease contract." Please make storage arrangements off-site to hold these items.
Michelle M. Levix
Community Manager
The Buchanan
320 23rd Street South
Arlington, Virginia 22202
Phone: 703-418-3700
Facsimile: 703-413-0643
buchanan@archstonesmith.com
Right, yeah, actual email from Michelle, and yeah, they just grouped my wrist-rocket and my Remington 700 avec Nightforce scope together. So anyways. We again have this problem of transporting a number of firearms from somewhere I am legally allowed to possess them (my home) to somewhere I am legally allowed to possess them (my new home, my car, etc), but in the middle there's this sort of quasi-legal area (it is not legal to conceal a shotgun or rifle, for example, but is carrying it to my car actually brandishing or displaying it?).
We've had a number of instances where we were taking weapons to the range, and bumped into people in the elevator. It's about fifty-fifty. Half the time, we get somebody who wants to reminisce about when they went hunting as kids, the fun times they had in the woods, they want to know where we're going and what sort of guns we have. It's kind of nervous, because we know we're not supposed to be "displaying" the weapons (but then it's real clear what's under your arm when it's black bag that says GLOCK on it), but it's never gotten anyone yelled at.
The other half of the time, we get somebody who is very visibly nervous about the cases and bags we have with us. Like us, the two most suburban multiracial (note: only one asian person has ever gone on a rampage with a firearm, and that was in San Diego, and it was a middle-aged man, not my wife, who is adorable) couple you could imagine, are going to go killing people. HINT: not going to happen. Anyways, nobody ever gets bent out of shape, other than maybe a little uncomfortable being in the elevator with somebody who's heavily armed (on the way to the damn car, remember).
I've even had people insist that I register my guns or that I need a permit to own a gun. It's enough to make you want to remind people, hey, I can and do own a gun in Virginia, and it's entirely goddamn legal. Enough with the bitching and moaning already.
A number of milestones
We're mostly moved into the new place. No, it's not the house on Contest Lane. For a number of reasons, the whole ordeal sort of exploded. Primarily, it's really hard to get a loan when your income is 1099, and you don't have an office, you know, in the damn country. And so that's that. But, we are in the new place, a condo. It's not multiple acres in the sticks, and there's no room for weimaraners or rifles in the back yard. But, we have south facing windows – floor to ceiling windows – and parking we don't pay for. Well, not for the Subaru anyways.
Anyways, the house is interesting. We haven't gone and bought a ton of shit since the house on Jeff Davis Hwy. So, we've been living like college students for the last six or seven years (the entire time we've been together, including two years of marriage, even). Odds and ends of furniture we don't like but tolerate because it's cheaper or easier than buying new furniture.
So in the new place, we have new appliances and stuff like that. The new appliances are being augmented with convenience items (see previous re: air pot, rice cooker). Everything is either being thrown out or integrated. Now we have mostly done what we wanted to do, you know, like years ago. Costs money, but it's, uh, investing in ourselves or something.
The real test will be whether we manage to actually continue in this whole "we care about our surroundings" bit or revert to dormdom.
Note that part of this is cataloguing all the books and music and such. I have more bitchings about Delicious Library, but they will wait until I've calmed down a little. That software gives me hives.
Anyways. The next part is that today is the day the Z begins its path back to the road. For everyone I haven't told, cars built in 1982 are now antiques in Virginia. This means they are no longer subject to emissions laws, nor safety inspection in our fine state. And so today, because I no longer have a finished garage and room for welders, etc., somebody else starts on the Z.
This means it probably does not get an alcohol burning RB26, at least not right now. Primarily because there aren't a lot of people in the area that can build one, and secondarily because the people that can build it for me won't give me the low, low labor rate I was getting from myself ($0).
So, I expect the Z to be on the road and under its own power soonish. And, hey, even registered in Virginia. Yowzers.
Lastly, it will be 81F today. Yay.
Anyways, the house is interesting. We haven't gone and bought a ton of shit since the house on Jeff Davis Hwy. So, we've been living like college students for the last six or seven years (the entire time we've been together, including two years of marriage, even). Odds and ends of furniture we don't like but tolerate because it's cheaper or easier than buying new furniture.
So in the new place, we have new appliances and stuff like that. The new appliances are being augmented with convenience items (see previous re: air pot, rice cooker). Everything is either being thrown out or integrated. Now we have mostly done what we wanted to do, you know, like years ago. Costs money, but it's, uh, investing in ourselves or something.
The real test will be whether we manage to actually continue in this whole "we care about our surroundings" bit or revert to dormdom.
Note that part of this is cataloguing all the books and music and such. I have more bitchings about Delicious Library, but they will wait until I've calmed down a little. That software gives me hives.
Anyways. The next part is that today is the day the Z begins its path back to the road. For everyone I haven't told, cars built in 1982 are now antiques in Virginia. This means they are no longer subject to emissions laws, nor safety inspection in our fine state. And so today, because I no longer have a finished garage and room for welders, etc., somebody else starts on the Z.
This means it probably does not get an alcohol burning RB26, at least not right now. Primarily because there aren't a lot of people in the area that can build one, and secondarily because the people that can build it for me won't give me the low, low labor rate I was getting from myself ($0).
So, I expect the Z to be on the road and under its own power soonish. And, hey, even registered in Virginia. Yowzers.
Lastly, it will be 81F today. Yay.
01 April, 2007
Curse you ocean!
I am buying stuff for the new place (air pot, rice cooker, shelving, stuff like that), and I find that RKM has a pair of books I haven't purchased – Thirteen and Black Man – and which are available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk. Upon placing them in my "basket," I notice that I don't have a couple of Alastair Reynolds' books, Galactic North and The Prefect. Now I get to pay over-Atlantic shipping and the exchange rate into GBP from USD (strange that it's not in Euros?). Thankfully, I already own and have read Glasshouse.
It's a happy sort of frown.
It's a happy sort of frown.