Poetry Thursday: The Christmas Episode

So here we stand, teetering on the brink of Christams Day, 2005. Another year has come and gone and blah blah blah. At least this year you all have my blog to keep you company at Christmas! The following poems are all about Christmas. Some are happy, some are not. Before you read them, try to guess which category the Thomas Hardy poem fits into!

The House of Hospitalities
by Thomas Hardy

Here we broached the Christmas barrel,
Pushed up the charred log-ends;
Here we sang the Christmas carol,
And called in friends.

Time has tired me since we met here
When the folk now dead were young,
And the viands were outset here
And quaint songs sung.

And the worm has bored the viol
That used to lead the tune,
Rust eaten out the dial
That struck night's noon.

Now no Christmas brings in neighbours,
And the New Year comes unlit;
Where we sang the mole now labours,
And spiders knit.

Yet at midnight if here walking,
When the moon sheets wall and tree,
I see forms of old time talking,
Who smile on me.



This Section Is A Christmas Tree
by Vachel Lindsay

THIS section is a Christmas tree:
Loaded with pretty toys for you.
Behold the blocks, the Noah's arks,
The popguns painted red and blue.
No solemn pine-cone forest-fruit,
But silver horns and candy sacks
And many little tinsel hearts
And cherubs pink, and jumping-jacks.
For every child a gift, I hope.
The doll upon the topmost bough
Is mine. But all the rest are yours.
And I will light the candles now.



The Sceptic
by Robert William Service

My Father Christmas passed away
When I was barely seven.
At twenty-one, alack-a-day,
I lost my hope of heaven.

Yet not in either lies the curse:
The hell of it's because
I don't know which loss hurt the worse --
My God or Santa Claus.





Christmas Trees
by Robert Frost

THE CITY had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, “There aren’t enough to be worth while.”
“I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.”

“You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.
He said, “A thousand.”

“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”

He felt some need of softening that to me:
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”

Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

Whatever and ever amen.

I don’t know what to write about today, but I also don’t want to let everybody down with a blank day so here goes…

An Imaginary Conversation Between Me and Me From Yesterday

Me From Yesterday: Whoa, dude, aren’t you supposed to be in Detroit right now?

Me: Oh, yeah, that. It got cancelled when I got a call from my company’s VP of Engineering last night at 11:00 PM.

MFY: That’s kind of late for a phone call, isn’t it? Wait a minute….does this mean that I didn’t need to rush to get so much stuff done earlier since I’m not going to Detroit now?

Me: Ah ha ha ha. Sucker!

MFY: Whatever dude. It’s not like you didn’t have to do it. We’re the same person you know.

Me: Man, this is weird huh?

MFY: Sort of like an existential temporal mirror in which we can see that which humans should never be privileged to see.

Me: I guess. This is kind of a boring conversation though. Can you think of anything more interesting to talk about?

MFY: Okay, how about this: Do you ever get annoyed when …

Me: Constantly.

MFY: What the??? I didn’t even finish my sentence!

Me: Trust me, I know what you were going to say, remember?

MFY: Oh. Yeah.

Me: So tell me, me, what are five things that you would pay good money for?

MFY: Some Black Butte Porter. Umm, maybe a flaming sword of truth? Six pieces of Almond Roca. For Maggie to get better, and my two front teeth. LOL! Get it? My two front teeth? Like the song?

Me: Good Lord! Am I always this stupid?

MFY: Well, yeah, pretty much, I think.

Me: Also, I have some bad news. Maggie still isn’t better.

MFY: Crud Muffins!

Me: So….Ummm… this seems to be going nowhere….

MFY: Okay, let’s kick things up a notch. BAM!

Me: I’m pretty sure that time traveling into the future makes one inherently more stupid, because there’s no way that I would think to say things like that in real life.

MFY: Except that I don’t exist and you’re thinking them up right now chowderhead!

Me: What? No, I, um, wait…That…..I…..Whooda…..What…..

MFY: Sucks to be you!

Me: I knew this phony self interview thing was a bad idea.

MFY [dancing around in a clown costume]: La La La La La La, I’m a big fat monkeyman, doing my little monkey dance!

Me: Somebody shoot me.

List Tuesday

Okay, so I'm busy today. You don't get any links this time. Also, I think that putting these lists on here sort of makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy that I get hits for these search temrs. Cool.


Things People Have Searched For That Somehow Led Them To My Blog (Part II)

1. Did Napoleon Bonaparte dislike bad smells?

2. Learn to draw a prince

3. “Maybe the rain will stop following me” Death Cab For cutie lyrics

4. virtual pedophilia

5. Bricks falling from a tall building

6. Stina Katchadourian Sodergran

7. p4ned

8. analyze pigtail- tadeusz rozewicz

9. Sweetheart’s Christmas

10. Glasses Bricks Pictures

11. Poetry on Land and Soil

12. Yakima Wa. Old Burger Ranch Employees

13. “Danny Gatton”

14. Cover over brick

15. riddle give the meaning of 0 degrees

16. Cobain Joplin Morrison Johnson Hendrix

17. Romeo Songs

A Brief History of the Universe

Rampant consumerism at Christmastime is the bane and the result of the baby boomers and the so-called "Greatest Generation."

There, I said it. Maybe it's not really entirely true, maybe I'm just trying to be provocative (okay, no maybe about that), but maybe, just maybe, there is a lot of truth to it. And I think it mostly stems from a horribly inaccurate view of childhood held by the older generations (and, I'm sure, my generation when our kids start to approach adulthood).

What do you remember about Christmas as a kid? Do you remember what you got as presents every year? Do you still harbor a grudge because you didn't get a specific gift? I doubt it. I don't think I can recall 5 gifts I ever got, outside of the traditional ones that is. What I remeber are the fun times, the advent calender and associated activities, the treasure hunts for our new ornaments (all us kids got a new one every year, a tradition we're keeping now with Levi) which meant we were going to get our Christmas tree that night. I remember making and painting Christmas cookies to take to my Grandma's house on Christmas eve. I remember trying to stay up all night because we were so excited about Christmas morning, a Christmas morning that I recall much less of than the time leading up to it. I remember my little brother, with whom I shared a bed, waking up around 1 AM one year and throwing up all over our bed. Too much candy at Grandma's I guess. I remember coming home with my new clock radio and setting it up and listening to a radio station out of Sacramento all night Christmas eve. I still don't know how I picked up a Sacramento station that night. At the time I didn't realize how far away Sacramento is from Yakima: about 800 miles. Anyway, that's enough reminiscences. I could go on for days, but I won't.

So that's what I remember. That's the kind of thing that most people remember. And that is exactly the problem. In our myopic and idyllic recollection, childhood was a time of purity and of wonderful unawareness of the crass commercialism surrounding Christmas. But if we're honest with ourselves, if we look back with a critical eye, I think we'll all find that this consumerist nightmare is nothing new, we just think it is.

So this hodgepodge of a post has been leading up to this: A Christmas Story. In my opinion,
this is one of the greatest Christmas movies ever made. Right up there with The Muppet Christmas Carol, Scrooged, and It's a Wonderful Life (which, to be honest, isn't really a Christmas movie per se). Have you all seen A Christmas Story? I hope so. It is a brilliant portrayal of what Christmas (and childhood in general) is like for kids. None of that whitewashing and ignoring of the heartbreak and stress involved. When Ralphie works so hard on a school essay about what he wants for Christmas (a Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle), really puts his heart into it, only to get a C+ and a snide comment, you can feel his sense of desperation and frustration, like the world and his teacher and his mom are all out to get him. It's that glorious self-centeredness of childhood. You can completely identify with his fear of death when he does something wrong. I'm sure all of us, at one point in our childhood, actually thought we were going to be killed, or kicked out, or something because of what we did. I don't know, it's just so perfect, this movie. Childhood is often a great time, and there is an innocence to it, but there's so much more that I think is really important for us not to forget, lest we see kids today as ungrateful, selfish brutes. So were we. So was everyone, time immemorial. That's what being a child is about.

And seriously, back to my initial statement in this horribly illconfigured and confusing post, if I hear one more 80-something person tell the story of how, when they were kids, all they got for Christmas was a kick in the head from a hobo and they liked it, by God! I think I'll puke. If that's true, if Christmas was all about little baby Jesus asleep on the hay, lowing cattle and the whole nine yards (more like 900 yards in the snow you stupid little ingrates!) when you were kids, then guess what, it's your generation's fault that we are where we are today. You are the ones that went crazy in the 40's and 50's and started buying your kids all the stuff you never had. You are the ones that raised the most spoiled generation in history who then went on to raise the most spoiled generation in history, who will in turn (probably) raise a bunch more spoiled kids. Yee haw. So don't lecture me, Gramps, about consumerism and not knowing the real meaning of Christmas. Go back and take the log out of your own eye first. Kids these days don't come up with it on their own. They learn it from somewhere, and that somewhere is you, their parents and grandparents.

Riddle Me This

Can you believe it? This is my 153rd post on A Ton Of Bricks!

Oh.

Yeah.

I just mentioned this the other day.

Never mind.

Now on to this week's FUN WITH PHYSICS!

So, as I was meandering (side note: the preceding word has it's origins in the name of the Maeander River in Phrygia, which was famed for it's windiness!) the internet, I stumbled across a Random Insult Generator. An example: I'd like to see things from your point of view but I can't seem to get my head that far up my ass. Associated with this generator are several others, including a Random Fact Generator, and a Random Famous Quote Generator. But what really got me thinking was the Random Riddle Generator. The first riddle I got was (and this isn't an exact quote): if you were 8 feet away from a wall and with each step moved half the distance to the wall, how many steps would it take to come in contact with the wall? The answer? It was, of course, a pithy "oh, you'll never get to the wall, but you will be taking some pretty small steps!" Ha ha ha. Oh wow, like I've never heard of Xeno's paradox you stupid internet thingy. But I'm here to tell you that the answer provided is absolutely and unequivocally wrong. That's right, it's wrong.

Let me explain. There is a property of the universe called the planck length (named after, guess who, Max Planck!). This length is the smallest possible distance that makes any sense in the universe. I won't go into the gritty details of it here, though. I'll suffice to say that it is based on the planck mass, which is the mass of a particle with a Compton Length equal to its Schwarzschild radius (which I believe I've mentioned before). When those two lengths are equal, that is the planck length, or about 1.6 x10^-35 meters. Anything smaller than this does not exist, since no information can ever be gleaned from smaller distances (kind of like a mini black hole, but different). Anyway, what this means is that when two things are separated by one planck length, they are actually touching. It has to do with the quantum uncertainty in the position of the particles. Just trust me. Or not. You can read about it on wikipedia, too. When we apply this idea to the riddle, it's a simple calculation to find that, if you start at 8 feet (2.4384 meters) out, after 117 steps you will be within one planck length of the wall, meaning you are actually touching the wall. Now you could also make the argument that at one step prior to that (116 steps), the next step would be physically impossible since it would need to be smaller than one planck length, so that you are actually touching the wall (by that I mean you can get no closer to the wall than you currently are) at a distance of 2.94 x10^-35 meters. Either argument holds water with me, but both say that after just over 100 steps you WILL reach the wall.

Come on riddle writers, learn some physics.

This idea can also apply to Xeno's paradox where you have an arrow moving at a constant speed. There is a unit of time called (guess what!) the planck time that is the smallest meaningful period of time in the universe. It is equal to the amount of time it takes a photon in a vacuum to pass through the planck length: about 5.39 x10^-44 seconds. From there, the argument is analogous and eventually the arrow does come in contact with the target.


This post contain 12 links, 6 of which are nearly incomprehensible physics articles.

Roundup Playpen Friday

It's good to see that these fine Americans are doing what they can to control terrorism. Look at the one second from the left. You know,the one in the weird red hat thing? He looks pretty shifty to me. Better lock him up and fly him to an undisclosed location overseas to "interrogate" him, if you know what I mean. And don't even get me started on the one in the bear hat. What is he trying to say by that? Is it some sort of communist symbolism about the rebirth of the "Bear" Mother Russia? Lock him up, too.

Lazy Days are Here Again

I hate having a head cold, well more of a severe neck cold than a head cold but whatevs. My brian gets all slow-moving and garbled. So in honor of that, I'm going to pull that old lazy-blogger trick out my hat: link to a story and/or article written by a real journalist. Side note: all you bloggers that think you're a real journalist because you write about the news and post links to actual news stories? You're not journalists. There I said it.

Anyway, the article was published in the Seattle Times last week in reference to the Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas "war" being fought by the inimitable Reverend Falwell. I think it's really funny, especially this part..

"I went into Macy's, with its blasphemous "Holiday Lane." Reverend, you'll be proud to hear I marched up to a clerk and barked your question: "Christmas, friend or foe?!"

She pretended not to know what I was talking about. She replied: "So, all ready for Christmas yet?"

She said "Christmas" as if it was something to ward off, like bird flu. I made a note to report her as a "foe," and ran out."

And on a second, sadder note, please see the follow up article that was published today.

A Celebration!

So folks, this is post number 150 for me, believe it or not. And what a long way we've come in those 150 posts. It's been a good time overall. Some ups and downs of course, but I've enjoyed it. And now for something completely different: a post in which I make sarcastic and denigrating comments about something-or-other! Ha ha. Just kidding. I do that every other post. This post will actually have some serious thought in it, not all jokes and off-handed comments meant to create an impenetrable shield of world-weariness and savoir-faire around me so that no one ever gets to learn anything about the real me.

So. There's this tree near the bus stop at Wisconsin and Albemarle. On the west side, in front of the Best Buy. I first noticed this tree early this year, probably around February. I noticed it again last week. It's a small tree of no significant type or import. Just a tree, on a street, near a bus stop. But what has me thinking is the fact that this tree doesn't lose its leaves. Oh, it will when the new leaves start to come in in the spring, but all winter, the dead, brown, crunchy leaves will still be hanging on for dear life, refusing to let go. Of course, one can't help but see the symbology in that. What are we hanging on to that maybe we should just let go?

But that isn't really what got me thinking. What got me thinking was when we let go and embrace the changes that are occurring around the world, what will we become. What are we changing into? What will it mean to live in a world that isn't dependent on fossil fuels? What will we do when the last source of cheap labor has been exploited? What will a "post-modern" corporation look like? How can we transition away from enslavement to the almighty dollar? And what can we transition into?

I feel like we're all living on the cusp of something. What is it? I don't know, but it's down there somewhere in that unknowable abyss called "the future." Our current way of life is unsustainable, I believe. Can our way of life ever be sustainable? What does sustainable even mean? Whatever it means, things are going to change. I can feel it. And soon, I would bet. It's always darkest right before the sun comes out. Or maybe not. Maybe it's always darkest right before things go completely black.

Random Puncture Friday

Ah, nothing like little kids celebrating the conquest and brutal murder of hundreds of thousands indigenous people. I love school. I think the Conquistadores in full battle armor are just that right touch in that little cartoon, don't you?

Bad Poetry Thursday is Back, too!

Today's genre is, well, it doesn't really have a genre. It just sucks.

The Unendurable Repetition of Concrete

by Schuyler

Concrete.
Concrete Concrete Concrete.
Con
Crete
Concr-ete
Grey(concrete)
Cold(concrete)
Forever(concrete)
What is this?

Concrete

The(concrete)End

Poetry Thursday is Back!

The sage lectured brilliantly

by Stephen Crane

The sage lectured brilliantly.
Before him, two images:
"Now this one is a devil,
And this one is me."
He turned away.
Then a cunning pupil
Changed the positions.

Turned the sage again:
"Now this one is a devil,
And this one is me."
The pupils sat, all grinning,
And rejoiced in the game.
But the sage was a sage.

Hope for the Hopeless

Okay, first things first. In the comment section of a recent post, a certain "Kate" asked me to expound on my theory of German consumerism. Now, I would hardly call it a theory, but I'll expound just a little.

I've been to two German cities this week. I know, I know. That's not really enough to make an all-inclusive observation, but I'll say it anyway. Ulm is probably like the Cleveland of Germany in that it's relatively big, but not real famous for anything besides a tourist attraction (Ulm: tallest church in the world. Cleveland: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame). Munich, on the other hand, is more like the Chicago of Germany: not the biggest, not the capital, but still in the top three. And yes, I know that Houston is actually now bigger than Chicago, but I refuse to compare Houston to anything if it means Houston comes out looking good. Anyway, the two cities that I have been to both have definite town centers where the people congregate. And what are these town centers? Well, at their hearts, the both have at least one cathedral. And surrounding the cathedrals are vast, glitzy, exorbitant pedestrian malls. It's not just the US that has malls as cultural and social centers. It's Germany too. They like to buy things just as much as we do. I guess they are a little thinner on average (which is weird because German portions are HUGE), but that's probably because they all smoke like chimneys.

Well, there you have it. That's the extent of my theory. Take it for what it's worth: not much.


On to the real story. Last night, after the conference, we had a conference related dinner event. It was pretty cool. We all met at the Gluhweinstand at the entrance to the Christmas market downtown, had a little gluhwein, and then went on a brief walking tour of old Munich. It was pretty cool to see the "old" (more on that in a bit) buildings and hear the story of the founding of Munich. Basically, it's named after some monks that used to live there. It was originally called Monken, but eventually that turned into Muenchen. The city logo is still a monk. At one point, the monks had a wooden bridge over the river Isar and charged exorbitant tolls to cross it. The local Duke (or whatever) didn't like paying, so he had it burned down and built a stone bridge. Somehow, though, the monks got the money anyway. And that was that. After the tour, we went to Die Augustiner and had a pretty awesome dinner with some pretty awesome beer. Probably the coolest thing about dinner was that I was at a table with: two Dutch guys, one Belgian dude, one Spaniard, one Italian women, and one Indian-British guy. International conference indeed.

But back to the "old" buildings. Most of the buildings in Munich are no more than 60 years old, even the 650 year old cathedral. How is that, you ask? Well, apparently Munich was bombed all to hell during WWII. So after the war, they just decided to build everything back like it was. I'm not quite sure what to make of this. Yes, I understand the history, and the heritage etc. but to me, it seems almost like they are trying to cover up that tragic time in their history. It's almost like it never happened. Which is bad, in my opinion. If we cover it up, how will we remember it? How will we avoid the same fate next time? Rebuilding? Of course, you have to rebuild. But rebuilding so that things are exactly like they were before seems like a whitewash, a willful ignorance almost. I don't know.

The tragedy of the war really hits you when you walk into St. Michael's Cathedral and see the pictures of the bombed out church. This beautiful renaissance cathedral was burned down to the bare walls. I can imagine the art that was destroyed, the precious historical artifacts, the worshipful icons and statues. It just breaks my heart that this happened, makes me consider the point of war. But I know what the point of that war was. I can't say it shouldn't have happened. What else could the allies have done? I just think of all the hopeless citizens of Munich. The war was over, the Germans had lost, but Hitler wouldn't admit it. He kept the war going. He forced the US and the Brits to bomb the bejesus out of Dresden, and Munich, and Berlin, and Hamburg, and for what? Because he wanted to rule the world? It pisses me off, really. So here they were, getting bombed day in and day out for no reason at all. Their museums, their churches, the old king's palace, everything. Except the two weird steeples on die Frauenkirche. And they are weird. They are two magnificent completely gothic steeples topped with archetypical renaissance style domes. Something about the weird timing of the construction.
See? Aren't they weird?
In the 35 years between when the master builder died and the steeples were put on, Euro-style changed from gothic to renaissance. Anyway, these steeples became a symbol of the crown jewel of Bavaria, Munich. It had been said that as long as those steeples were standing, there would be a Munich. And after the bombing, those two steeples (and only those two steeples. Seriously, the actual city of Munich was about 95% destroyed. The suburbs about 70%) were miraculously (yes I really believe that) untouched. I guess it just goes to show that even in mankind's darkest hours, God can still give hope to the hopeless and courage to the terrified. Even if we don't think they deserve it.

Now I'm in Munich???

So, my tour of north-central Europe continues now in the great region of Bavaria. Actually, most of today was spent a little further west, in the city of Ulm, Germany, but I'll get to that. Also, I realize that this is my second Look-what-I-did-today post, and I'm sorry that I'm not my normal scintillating, exacting self, but whatever.

One thing I am definitely thankful for is that I live in Washington DC and take the metro to work. If not for that, I would have been totally lost this morning trying to get to the main train station in Munich, Die Hauptbanhof. I took the subway (U-bahn) and I would have been totally confused if I didn't understand that the lines are named by the direction they are heading in. I would have thought "What? I don't want to go to Nuperlach-sud! I want to go to the Hauptbanhof!" But, because I take the Red Line in the direction of Shady Grove everyday, I understood what the signs meant. Whew. Also, I think it would be very easy to take the U-bahn without paying. I paid of course, but I'm just saying.

Now let me tell you a little about the Munich train station. It is friggin huge. I mean, like Union Station times three. What's different about the train station here is that you don't line up at a set of stairs and then walk down to an individual platform. All the platforms are just sort of, there under one HUGE roof. It's kind of cool. Anyway, without even asking for help and without signs in English, I managed to get on the correct train to Ulm and everything. It was pretty cool. That's what good signage does, I guess. Gets you to where you need to go, regardless of language. Well, maybe leaving out languages that don't use the Roman alphabet, but who cares about them????

So on to Ulm. Ulm is a pretty cool city with, get this, the TALLEST CATHEDRAL IN THE WORLD. It was actually pretty awe-inspiring. I've never been in a "real" cathedral before, you know, one that is more than 50-years old. This one was about 800. The only disappointing thing about was that the incredibly tall spire wasn't built until the 1870's or in other words, almost 400 years after the pinnacle of gothic cathedral architecture. But aside from that, the church was incredible. I went inside and was stunned, speechless at the complexity and vastness of the thing. Incredibly tall arched ceilings, detailed statues of saints to pray to, exquisite stained-glass windows. It was a very moving experience. It's hard to understand the love and the dedication that went into such a building. Each stone hand carved by master masons. Each pane of glass stained by a master craftsman. Each gargoyle and filigree painstakingly carved from raw stone by some forgotten artist. Wow. And over all this was the sheer hubris of the medieval church. What sort of organizational and spiritual fortitude would it take to conceive of such a thing? It goes beyond words. I can't understand what would drive such a project. Was it love for Christ? Was it self-aggrandization? Was it to bring the community together in a way nothing else could? Was it a vain grasp at the heavens? Maybe a little of each? Anyway, I'm out of superlatives to use, so, if you ever find yourself in south-western Germany, check it out. Also, try to be there at Christmas time because the Christmas Market in front of the Cathedral is awesome.

One final not about Germany: They may think that they are somehow inherently different from the rampant consumers in the US, but I'm here to tell you that I don't think it is so much a difference in type as it is in magnitude.

Greetings from Brussels

Okay, let me get this off my chest. Brussels is....well..... just as cool as you're probably imagining it (or remembering it?). Seriously, it looks like it was pulled right from Beauty and the Beast! You know, the tall elegant homes, the towering cathedrals, the huge palaces.

But not where I am staying. My hotel is about three blocks from the European Congress, and if you know how big a bureaucracy the European Congress is, you can imagine what my neighborhood looks like. It's the Crystal City of Brussels.

Fortunately, not too far away is Gran Place. Of course, I didn't make it there today. I tried, really, I tried. But I got lost. Instead, I ended up at Eglise Sainte-Marie, which was pretty cool. And a lot farther away than Gran Place. And dang it, I really wanted to go to Boutique Tintin. Oh well, next time I'm in Brussels I guess.

Several things to note about Brussels:

1. Look out for little Belgio-Islmaic boys. They will smack you and threaten you in French if you're not careful. (Turn the other cheek....Don't hit a kid....)



2. Taxis are not available. When I got lost (oh yeah, I also saw Le Jardin Botanique!) I tried to find a taxi, but there were none. Maybe you have to call them or something.



3. Everybody here speaks about a million languages. Okay, maybe 4, but still, that's a lot!



4. This chick totally asked me a question in French on the street. I think she asked me how to get somewhere, but I'm not sure. I just shrugged my shoulders and was all like, "I don't know. SOrry." Anyway, the point is that I don't look like a stupid American! Sweet!!!



5. Chimay beer is even better here.

Hiatus Europa

Well everyone, I'm off to Europe for a week of probably being bored at conferences. Oh well, it's still cool, right? Anyway, I hope to be able to write from there, but we'll see. I may not be back til December 6th. I don't know. I know it'll be hard for you not to have any thing to read here, but I'm sure you'll find a way to deal with it.

Anybody got nothing to do tonight?

I know this is kind of last minute, but our other options fell through. Maggie, our guests and I were hoping to go see Harry Potter tonight, but we don't have a babysitter for Levi and his two friends Stephanie (5) and Libertie (9). Anybody want to watch some sweet kids for a few hours tonight? We are willing to drive, so don't worry about having to come all the way in to our house.

List Tuesday

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Rain, Rain, What Am I Sayin'

Hey, let's talk about the weather!

Pretty crummy weather we're having, isn't it?

Yep, stupid cold winter rain.

Yeah, my street practically flooded the other day.

Hmm, well, see ya later.

Ahhh, now that we've got the small talk out of the way, we can get down to the matter at hand.....the weather.

I'm loving this cold rain because it reminds me of a simpler time in my life: when I worked on a deep-sea fishing boat, far off the shores of the rugged, mountain-lined coast of northwest Canada. We would go days without seeing land, or other boats. Just the crew, the tons of dead fish, and the cold ocean rain to keep me company. I almost died out there multiple times. Once, I fell in the ocean and had to be pulled out, stripped and covered in dead fish. If they would have put me in anything warmer than dead fish at first, it would have caused irreparable harm to my internal organs. Heat transfer stuff, you know. Some people did die. Drownings, freak net accidents. One guy was even killed when an extraordinarily large sturgeon snapped his neck with one powerful tail flick. It was a dangerous but fulfilling job, and many are the times when I look back on it with fondness, but no desire to do it again. I couldn't put my family through that now.

Anyway, the rain also reminds me of my first year living in the city. Growing up in Yakima (I've complained about it enough, I think) we never got rain. Snow, yes, sometimes, but rain? Rarely. And we thought of Seattle as "The Big City," which seems really strange to me now. From the east coast, Seattle looks like a little rustic backwater. A really cool backwater that I want to return to someday, but a backwater nonetheless. So I moved to Seattle to start college with the idea that "hey, it rains, like, every day in Seattle." And it's true. In winter at least. That winter (98-99) it rained, I think, 89 out of 91 days between November and March. The other two were overcast, just not rainy. It never snowed, it just rained, constantly, and stayed slightly above freezing. Honestly, that sucks. That much rain and cold and dreariness is hard to bear. Basically, for three straight months it looks like today in DC. Cold, dark, wet, and desolate. But believe me when I tell you that Seattle summers make up for that in spades. You probably won't believe me if you haven't been there, but Seattle summers are the best. Sunny, verdant, only moderately humid, rare is the day that breaks 85 degrees. It's really, really nice, with the smell of the ocean air blowing in from Puget Sound. Ahhhhhh.

But winter there, I could do without. Bah.

Hold on to your hats and glasses folks, because this is going to be a three-parter! That's right, you heard me. This post will contain not one, not two, but THREE great little dispatches from the metro. And if you call our operators within the next 60 minutes, you'll get a 5-blade juice-extracting device absolutely free!

Dispatch #1: Subtlety is dead.
There's an ad out there in some of the cars for a Napoleon Bonaparte exhibit at some museum. I don't remember which one. One of the ads has the following quotation: "In politics, stupidity is not a handicap." - Napoleon Bonaparte. A relatively clever and subtle "editor" for lack of a better word, had crossed out "Napoleon Bonaparte" and written in "George W. Bush," so as to say that GWB is stupid, but since he's in politics, he can get away with it. It was a cute little moderately subversive act of graffiti. However, underneath "George W. Bush," someone else had written "SUCKS!" Whoever wrote that just doesn't get it. The first guy was not saying that Bush is great, he was saying Bush is stupid. But don't let that stop you Mr. Unsubtle Bush Bashing Guy! Lose yourself in that knee-jerk reaction to think "SUCKS!!!!" every time you see or hear Bush's name. Never mind the fact that there are others out there who agree with you but don't have the same reaction. I'm sorry that it is you who is in fact stupid.

Dispatch #2: Robert Washington
I don't know if this happens regularly, but last night, while I was riding the Yellow Line across the river (from the Pentagon to L'Enfant Plaza), the train operator regaled us for about 4 straight minutes about safety, security, what to do in the event of an emergency and why we should care. He referenced the London bombings from July, the Jordan bombings from last week, and I think he even tossed a bird-flu allusion in there, I can't quite remember. Anyway, as we pulled into L'Enfant Plaza, he wished us all a "Safe, Safe, Safe evening," and ended his lecture by telling us that his name was Robert Washington, and that it had been a pleasure being our operator this evening. I think Mr. Washington is the coolest guy ever. I've never seen a whole car full of people laughing at the same time. It ruled.

Dispatch #3: Mr. Stick My Arm In The Closing Door Guy
I'd like to take a second to salute Mr. Stick My Arm In The Closing Door Guy. You all know him. When the door chimes and says "Doors Closing!" he lunges at the closing orifice and sneaks his arm (and sometimes a foot!) into the door. Then, he struggles, blood being cutoff, to force the doors open again so that he doesn't have to wait 2 more minutes for the next train. And he always wins because, what's the driver going to do? Drive off with some dude hanging out of the train? We can only wish..... Anyway, here's to you Mr. Stick My Arm In The Closing Door Guy, you've got guts and maybe even a little tissue damage. And here's to the two minutes you saved. I hope they went to good use.

Run Pop For

Here is a picture. It is a picture of girls that play soccer. I wonder what it is like for the one girl on the team who is not white?

Ye Olde Wayfareres Felloweshippe

I'm not one that likes to rag on certain ideas when I don't have a replacement idea of my own, but I'm gonna. I don't like "Wayfarers Fellowhip" or really anything with the word "Wayfarers" in it. I'm sorry, I just don't. This is what it makes me think of.....




I mean, we'll still go, but when people ask what church we go to, I'll say "It doesn't have a name."

List Tuesday

Okay, I'll be at a conference here in town for most the rest of the week, but I'll try to post as often as I can. I mean, I know that all of you depend on me to brighten your days and I'll try not to let you down! Anyway, here's this weeks list, and for the first time, it's interactive! Please leave me a comment with your opinion on which one you think would be best! Also, I mispoke yesterday. It's not an unvoiced alveolar stop, it's an unvoiced palatal stop that I need to have in my stage name.

Things That Could Be My Stage Name (As in Mike Check and ____________)

1. The Snackmaster


2. The Snakemaster


3. The Jack of Hearts


4. Skymall


5. Axeman


6. Crafty Jack


7. Carl


8. Pomod


9. Basketcase


10. Squishy Bob


11. Wack Job


12. Blue Collar


13. Beef Jerky

And That was the Week(end) That Was

Normally, I wouldn't just write a post about things that happened to me, but I feel like doing that today. So there.

I'm not usually up at 7:15 on Sunday mornings, let alone outside walking to the Cleveland Park metro station, but yesterday, that's exactly where I found myself. It's a little weird being out early on a Sunday. Every other day of the week an early morning walk puts you on the road with the poor and the servants that we don't want to see during the day. The janitors and the lawn care guys, mostly hispanic. But on Sundays, even they get the chance to rest. The roads were nearly deserted, the cars silent. If you're walking down Ordway St. from 34th to Connecticut, you get to a point from which you can't see either of those streets. As I walked that brief section yesterday with music in my ears I saw a cascade of golden leaves falling onto the road and the cars parked all along it. It seemed that everything was still except those leaves falling, and I wondered, how long would it take before evidence of our society would disappear? How long until those cars parked in gapless rows along the road rusted beyond recognition and were buried in fallen leaves? How long until the streets which we carefully maintain (or not so carefully, i.e. the Nebraska Ave North to Massachusetts Ave East turn at Ward Circle) became shattered crumbs of asphalt and concrete with tree roots spreading relentlessly? Would the iron from the cars seep into the soil and change the fall colors of the trees? Or would the remnants of our lives poison the earth to the point where it was unihhabitable? Before I could answer those questions, I was startled out of my reverie by the cars zooming by as Connecticut Ave came into view. Sure it was only a few cars (it was Sunday morning after all) but that was all it took. Then down into the bowels of the city for the long trip out to Vienna. As much as I wonder about some of the repercussions of our modern society, it sure is nice to have a clean and timely subway system.

Speaking of clean and timely subway systems, Metro is awesome on Sunday mornings. I checked the WMATA website the night before to see what time I would need to leave home to get to Vienna at 8:30. It told me to catch the 7:38 train at Cleveland Park which pulled into the station the next day at.....7:38. And I got a seat! I never get a seat!

Do strange things ever happen to you about which you do not know what to do? Well, it doesn't happen very often to me, but yesterday, as I was walking towards the north Kiss & Ride in Vienna, I was approached by a, for lack of a better word, hooligan. Some dude, probably about 24 or 25 (my age!) was walking toward me in very baggy and unkempt black clothes and a weird black stocking cap. He was carrying what looked like a Double Gulp from 7-11. As we approached each other, me heading out, him in, I moved slightly to my right so that we didn't collide. You know, what everyone does when they approach an oncoming person. He however, moved to his left, very intentionally blocking my path. At the last second he moved to pass and spit, again very intentionally, right at my feet. It was, well not surreal, but pretty strange and at least two standard deviations away from the mean of normal human relational behavior. How do you react to that? And since we were talking about ethics at church that morning, how do you turn the other cheek? He was gone before I really even realized what happened. And why did he do that? Was there something about how I looked that made him dislike me? Was it my stylish leather jacket that I paid nothing for and wear because it's warm? Or do I carry an air of smugness about myself that I don't realize? Or does he just like to flirt with the borders of proper behavior and see how people react? Maybe he's a grad student doing research? Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I didn't get mad, I just got confused.


Also, does anyone need $10? While wandering around the Vienna station, waiting for Dee to pick me up, I set out to find the south Kiss & Ride. If, upon exiting the station on the south side, you turn immediately left, there it is. Not knowing this, however, I turned right and followed the road around towards the parking garage past the end of the sidewalk. Not knowing where to go from there, I turned around and promptly found a ten-dollar bill lying on the road. A road down which no one had driven for at least the last 5 minutes. Was I meant to find that money? It sure felt like it. Maybe I'm still destined to find a good use for it, or someone that needs it more than me that I can give it to. We'll see.

For those of you that read this and don't go to my church, the following anecdote should tell you a lot about what we as a church are about. Yesterday we began a new Open Mic time at the beginning of our service. The main idea is to give people something they don't want to miss so they arrive approximately on time. For the first "act" my friend Mike and I did a poetical rendition of Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne. I hear it was pretty good (Pete, I definitely want to know if we got recorded or not!). After church, we discussed the possibility of doing something similar in the future and Mike (stage name: Mike Check) suggested that I need a stage name. He came up with "The Snake," probably a reference to my snake-themed "comics" that I post here. I've decided, however, that I don't like that name. Too many negative connotations. So here's my new stage name: The Snackmaster. I like the evocations of musicopoetical crunchy goodness and the relationship to a popular line of food dehydrators. Plus it keeps the strong unvoiced alveolar stop that lends a bit of rhythm to our name: Mike Check and The Snackmaster. That is, in two words, Awe Some.

And now, I'll end this loquacious post with a question: Last night I was talking to my mother on the phone (what a good son, huh?) and I told her that Maggie and I had recently joined the Design Team at our church, unqualified as we are. And she of course asked what that team does and I explained that we plan the services. Then, she asked if we plan good bible teaching. Uhhhh, I don't know how to respond to that! If you don't know, "Good Bible Teaching" is like a brandname for "guy (must be a guy, no chicks allowed) standing up and going through a Bible Passage so that the congregation can learn what it means." I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with that, but it's really not what we do. However, I do think we follow what should be called good bible teaching (non-registered trademark) in that I think it's good, we look at the bible and I at least usually learn something. But it's definitely not "Good Bible Teaching©®TM" So, how should I respond to her question? Last night I just changed the subject, but I'm afraid some day she'll come out here to visit and go to one of our church services and be convinced that we've revoked our faith.

The pictures moved

Just so you know, I moved my stupid-looking drawings to a new site: snakesatthemic.blogspot.com. I think the name is cooler.

Rackemup Probably Forewarned

Okay kid, those freaky sock arms are starting to get to me. Take them off, please?

Bad Poetry Thursday

Today's genre is hopelessly pessimistic self-aware wallowing in self-pity from a suburban american perspective.



Where Do You Want To Go Today

by SJSTL


The plastic cups of coffee
And glittering overhead track lighting
Smother our glorious auras in
Modernity

Escape is not feasible.
Resistance is futile.
As if by hidden signal
We jump how high

Oh well.
Let’s just go to Home Depot.
I hear they have some washers on sale.
We can buy one with our home equity loan.

The TSWG Wants Some More Questions

Well, nobody seems to want to ask me any questions, so I'm relegated to answering junk mail. Come on people, ask me something! Please?

Well, Yahoo FareChase asked me the following:

Looking for a better travel deal?

Yahoo! Farechase makes it easy to find the hotel you want.

A great hotel deal means a good price, a terrific location, the right amenities. Yahoo! FareChase helps you find a hotel using the criteria that matters the most to you, including:

* Location
* Star rating
* Bed type
* Pet policy
* Spas
* Fitness center
* And more!

Yes, I am always looking for a better deal, but not on hotels. See, we've got the hook up through Maggie's dad when it comes to hotels. If you can find me a better fare for air travel, I'd be interested, but for hotels, eh, not so much.

Poetry Thursday

From One Who Stays

by Amy Lowell

How empty seems the town now you are gone!
A wilderness of sad streets, where gaunt walls
Hide nothing to desire; sunshine falls
Eery, distorted, as it long had shone
On white, dead faces tombed in halls of stone.
The whir of motors, stricken through with calls
Of playing boys, floats up at intervals;
But all these noises blur to one long moan.
What quest is worth pursuing? And how strange
That other men still go accustomed ways!
I hate their interest in the things they do.
A spectre-horde repeating without change
An old routine. Alone I know the days
Are still-born, and the world stopped, lacking
you.

List Tuesday

Things to do during the day to kill time

1. Draw weird pictures


2. Read conspiracy theories on the internet.


3. Call somebody


4. Draw even weirder pictures


5. Daydream about bears and ice skates


6. Stare out the window and contemplate the rapidly approaching end of innocence


7. Fill up your water bottle, drink all the water, then fill it up again


8. Repeat


9. Write a post. Or two.


10. Go home early

Yes we've got no money!

Here's a good memory for you all!

Once, right after I got married and we added Maggie to my account, making a joint checking account, I said to myself, "well, no sense keeping these old checks with only my name on them around. I might as well throw them out!"

Little did I know that we had a dumpster-diving vitamin fiend living in our neighborhood. On second thought, looking at where we lived at the time (in The Hyatt apartment building on the corner of 47th Ave NE and NE 15th St in Seattle) the existence of such a person shouldn't have surprised me. Also, little did I know that I was such an unstoppable moron that I would throw away perfectly good checks without tearing them up. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.

Anyway, cut to a couple weeks later (financial aid day!! WOOHOO!!!!!) when we go to the bank to deposit some money. "Hmm.." I think while I look at the balance, "I don't always keep exact track of how much money we have, but it should be.....well, quite a bit more than this.... So we get home and call the bank and they tell us of all these mystery checks for random amounts that have check numbers not listed in our checkbook register. "Oh crap!" I thought, "My second-worst fear has come true! Someone stole our checks and is out there pretending to be me!" (For your information, my worst fear is falling out of bed into some kind of weird space-time vortex or bottomless pit or something)

So we went to the bank and filled out all kinds of paperwork to get the fraud fixed. The woman who helped us at the Roosevelt Ave Washington Mutual was very helpful (thanks, whoever you were!) The only problem was that we had to wait, like, 20 business days to get our money back. So, we basically ate no food and bought no stuff for awhile. We tried to heat our apartment by lighting copious amounts of candles. It was pretty cool, really. Then, one day, we went back to the Yak to visit family and we totally scored a whole bunch of food from our parents because they felt really bad for us. HAH! Suckers, little did they know, but we actually got all our money back two days before we raided their kitchens! Oh man, they totally got OWNED! (To all of you who think that using OWNED or one of the typoed variations of it is really cool, let me tell you this: There is a big difference between cool and stupid that is immediately obvious to everyone. Except for you, apparently.)

Rawlly Practisum Firedog

I'm sorry, but some people just have the stupidest tatoos. Has something like this that looks like some kind of crappy new age painting that you might find on a cheap pack of tarot cards ever been cool? That'll look pretty sweet in a few years, I bet.

This reminds me of a friend of mine. I really love her, she's a great mother and all, but she once got a tattoo of, are you ready for this, a tiger......holding a rose.....in its mouth. That had to be the tackiest thing ever. To be fair, she did have it covered up by another tattoo. A tattoo of a pair of light blue angel wings. That's like selling your 1985 Chevy Cavalier and buying .......a 1986 Cavalier. Maybe it was okay in 1987, but 2004? Nope. Malissa, if you're reading this, I'm just kidding around.

If I ever get a tattoo, which I won't but I'm just saying, it will be on my stomach. It will say "THUG LYFE" in fancy gothic-style letters. That would look so awesome when I'm 75 and hanging out on the beach. Yeah, Thug life baby.

More Freaking Poetry Thursday: The Bukowski Edition

Normally, I don't really like Bukowski poems, but this one made me laugh.

I Met A Genius

by Charles Bukowski


I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

Still makes me feel a little homesick

My mom and dad went to the coast this past weekend, just for the heck of it. On the way, they took these two pictures that I thought were quite lovely. I like it out here in DC, but part of me still feels homesick for the land of my lost youth.

Ahhh, that's the life...

I decided that if I could be any rock star in history, I would be Tom Petty.

First of all, the brickwife thinks he's sexy (don't ask me why, I mean, have you ever seen a picture of the guy??) so I'd have that going for me.

Second, he's a musical genius, but not in the way you usually think of that term. I would wager that half of his songs are in the key of G. The other half are probably in Am. But that's the beauty of this guy! His songs are so simple, yet so good! Almost every one is verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, verse, chorus. And yet somehow, they're all different! It rules. Also, he doesn't mess around with weird instrumentation either. One or two guitars, a bass, drums, maybe some keys of some kind, and that's it. That's the great thing about the "standard" rock band set up, it's so simple, and yet so variable.

Third, he's just famous enough. He doesn't have any rabid fans (think parrotheads or U2 fans) that are total lunatics, but he's definitely got a lot of fans. He still plays big arenas, but the tickets are relatively cheap.

Fourth, he got to be in the Traveling Wilburys. How cool would that have been to work and record alongside Dylan, Orbison, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne? Pretty damn sweet.

Plus, I bet he has a lot of money.

Which I don't care about.


Yes I do.

Poetry Freaking Thursday

The Road That Runs Beside The River

by Thomas Lux

follows the river as it bends
along the valley floor,
going the way it must.
Where water goes, so goes the road,
if there's room (not in a ravine,
gorge), the river
on your right or left. Left is better: when you're driving,
it's over your elbow across
the road.
You see the current, which is
what the river is: the river
in the river, a thing sliding fast forward
inside a thing sliding not so fast forward.
Driving with, beside, the river's flow is good.
Another pleasure, driving against it: it's the same river
someone else will see
somewhere else downstream -- same play,
new theater, different set.
Wide, shallow, fairly fast,
roundy-stone streambed, rocky-land river,
it turns there or here -- the ground
telling it so -- draining dull
mountains to the north,
migrating, feeding a few hard-fleshed fish
who live in it. One small sandbar splits
the river, then it loops left,
the road right, and the river's silver
slips under the trees,
into the forest,
and over the sharp perpendicular
edge of the earth.

Oh yeah? Well Emerge from this!

First off, let me say that I really love my church. And please don't be offended.

I think the "Emergent" movement is dumb. For all it's talk about a new "conversation" that is honest and doesn't have the baggage of a built-vocabulary like the "institutional Church," I don't think it's that much different. There absolutely is a set of buzzwords that you need to know, and the buzzwords, at least to me, appear to be synonyms of the horrible, soul-crushing buzzwords that "Fundamentalists(!)" use. But not the same words mind you. The emergent church can't use the same semantics as those they are emerging from, right?

I guess the most frustrating thing about it for me is that, while I agree with many of the things the movement says, I don't want to be a part of no movement. I want to be a part of a church that does things however it wants! I don't care if other emergent churches do things a certain way and go to certain conferences and read certain books. Once we all start doing that, we're nothing but another denomination that'll soon have mega-churches of its own. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It just seems that so often we are blind to our own ambitions, our own destiny. Without thinking independently, we'll all become that which we rail against. It's happened time and time again, both within the church and without. So 20 years down the road, don't say I didn't warn the movement.

And here's another thing. Can we drop the criticism of other churches already? Yes, I already know that we do things differently. Please stop reminding me of how stupid other churches are for the way they do things. Stop defining yourselves by what you are not, and start worrying about what you are! I'm not saying we shouldn't look around us, but there is a HUGE difference between saying, "eh, that's not really for me, but if it works for you..." which is what I thought the emergent thingy was all about and saying "what you are doing is different from my church in the following ways and this is why it is stupid and wrong and if I had enough guts I'd say you were going to hell, but that's what a IFB would say so I can't say it but I really think it."

Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places (i.e. Ginkworld and The Ooze). As an example of what I mean, read this article by Frank
Viola (imagine my disappointment when I realized he was not the same Frank Viola that led the Minnesota Twins to the World Series in 1987.) He's trying to be evenhanded, but the whole article is predicated on the fact that we all know how stupid this other person's church is. Grrrrrrr!

Maybe y'all can educate me on how "emergent" is any different in essentials from any other denomination. I already know we do things differently, but are we any less elitist? Do you have a good book I can read? If you tell me to read any more articles or anything else by John O'Keefe, I'll just pretend like I didn't hear you.

List Tuesday

Top 8 Things I Worry About

1. Levi


2. Money


3. Whether or not I worry too much


4. Levi


5. Maggie


6. Being a nice person


7. Real estate (or really any) Bubbles


8. Getting buried alive in radioactive dirt by a cult of Nancy Pelosi-worshipping Argentine midgets in Insane Clown Posse style facepaint.

Note: Number 8 narrowly edged out "falling onto the third rail and frying like a like a garage-fire causing turkey."

Dear Prudence

So, yesterday at church (check out the new website!) we talked a lot about worry, trust and life. Since we're looking at the sermon on the mount, we focused on the lillies of the field and the sparrows and what not. During our post-"sermon" discussion much was made of the balance between no worries and meeting our responsibilities. Or how worry could sometimes be a good thing. But I don't think I agree, and that scares me. Let me explain.

No matter how hard we try, I don't think we can divorce ourselves fully from our cultural frame of reference. We always have and always will (at least to some degree probably) desire what can only be called "success." I know I do. That's why I worked my tail off for four years in college to finish at the top of my class with a lucrative degree. Success. Bred through a lot of worry. If you don't believe me, ask Maggie who was there to see it all, including the time I kicked my backpack across the apartment when I only scored 4 percent above average on a Dif. Eq. test. But what was the point of it all? To have a good job? Sure, but what's the point of that? In God's eyes, am I any more of a success because I used fear and worry to differentiate myself from those that "sit at home all day playing the guitar?" I don't really think so. Aren't we explicitly told not to fear the wrath of men? Actually, that's not a rhetorical question. I don't know the bible nearly as well as I think I should (crap! worrying again!) so if someone could enlighten me as to whether or not that idea appears anywhere, I would greatly appreciate it. So, what does it boil down to? I'll distill it to one question that I have: Is there ever a valid issue about which to worry? I'll posit that the answer is no, but that won't stop me from doing it.

Second, I want to look at the idea of prudence. We talked a lot about not worrying, but still meeting our obligations. What obligations? Do we have any that outweigh God? Who cares about the ant and the grasshopper? I can't find any mention in the sermon on the mount that asks for prudence when it comes to money especially. Jesus didn't say to that one guy "Go sell all your possessions, set up a trust fund for your kids and make sure they have some insurance and then follow me." He just said "sell everything and follow me." It seems pretty ridiculous to think that Jesus really meant that, I mean, we can't just abandon everything, can we? Should we? Shoot, I don't know, but I do think it is a typically American thing to think that we can't. That we need to provide prudently for the future, as though by preparing we can somehow stave it off. I guess maybe it all boils down to attitude. If you can prepare monetarily for the future without letting money rule your life, do it. Also, my ignorance may be rearing its ugly head again, so if Jesus ever does say something in the gospels that advises prudence and planning for the future, someone please bring it to my attention. Because I am scared out of my wits that it's not in there and I don't think I can sell everything and follow him....

Yakimemories

Well, you know how the old saying goes; vicious mockery is the sincerest form of flattery. And if that's true, then my home town of Yakima, Washington is about to get sincerely flattered.

I was born at Memorial Hospital on Tieton Drive the morning of November 23rd, 1979. It was a Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. And while I would like to say that I was born into a region of fantastic culture and amazing opportunity, I can't. Well, that's not really fair. There are some good things about Yakima, but it's way more fun to ignore them and pretend the whole place sucks. It will always be uber-cool (ha! I used the word uber, which hasn't been a cool thing to do since 2003, and paired it with the word cool! Oh my, how my self-consciousness and self-deprecating desire to be cool is not at all obvious. Umm, now I don't know how to end this parenthetical comment....sooooo.....ummmmmm.....) to be from a small town, live in the big-city and pretend that everything there was retarded and everyone from your hometown is some kind of liberal-hating, truck-driving, homophobic, fundamentalist lunatic. But all y'all know that a part of you kind of, maybe just a little bit, wants to go back there someday. Maybe your family is still there. Maybe you still have friends there. Maybe there's a certain time of year where something in you just longs for the air of your hometown. Whoa. This is getting sappy. Let's just cut to the mockery.

Let's start with the low hanging fruit: There is a sign on the freeway as you approach "downtown" that reads, "Yakima, the Palm Springs of Washington." Based on the fact that if you Google that phrase, in quotation marks mind you, you get 732 results, I am definitely not the first to point out that the sign is kind of stupid. Let's just say that Yakima has an average high temperature of below 60 F and an average low of below freezing for 5 months out of the year. Palm Springs' average high never dips below 70.

In other news, Yakima recently landed an Applebee's! This was front-page news in the Yak. That should give you an idea of what it's like there.

When I was a kid, you had to drive to the Tri-cities (Richland, Pasco and Kennewick) to do any good shopping. And by good I just mean "not sucky."

And don't even get me started on all the fruit that they grow around there. Oh, wait. The apples are actually really good. You can even buy them back here on the east coast, though believe me, they are way better when they haven't been shipped all the way across the country.

In high school, the best thing to do on the weekends is drive around. That's it. Just drive around. You can usually find groups of hooligan kids all up and down Nob Hill Ave at car washes, empty lots, and even the Burger King parking lot. At least that's the way it was circa 1997.

Yakima has the highest ratio of very poor to very rich in the whole state of Washington. Way to go fruit growers. Keep those migrant Mexican workers in poverty with your low wages, and if they speak up, call INS and ship their asses back to Mexico (Note: this actually happens. Growers actually do call INS on their own illegal employees).

I still don't understand how a town as small as Yakima has a gang problem. What turf is there to fight over? Yo, vato, we totally claim all land South of the 5th Ave Safeway and North of Front Street between Yakima Ave and Lincoln as property of the Surrenos!

Stupid Yakima Brewing Company went out of business. The company that opened the first post-prohibition brew pub in the country ran itself into the ground. Probably because they're from Yakima and everyone that didn't leave after high school at least for college is an idiot.

The white people that live there (about half the population) thinks that the North and East sides of town are "the ghetto." You want the ghetto? I can show you the ghetto. Go drive down M-53 through Detroit. Go hang out in Anacostia. That, my friends, is the ghetto.

Well, there's so much more to complain about, and I don't have the time, so I'll stop here. But as a final piece of advice, if you ever find yourself in Yakima, make sure you check out as many random taco busses as you can. You may not always know what the meat is, but those are some good burritos.

Randizzle Piznicture Frizzledizzle

Dude, is that kid playing in a field of pot plants??? Somebody call the Feds! Oh, wait. No. I just found out that this picture sprang from the loins of Russia, so who cares.

Poetry Thursday

Boadicea

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess,
Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility,
Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune,
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy.

`They that scorn the tribes and call us Britain's barbarous populaces,
Did they hear me, would they listen, did they pity me supplicating?
Shall I heed them in their anguish? shall I brook to be supplicated?
Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
Must their ever-ravening eagle's beak and talon annihilate us?
Tear the noble hear of Britain, leave it gorily quivering?
Bark an answer, Britain's raven! bark and blacken innumerable,
Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the carcase a skeleton,
Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolfkin, from the wilderness, wallow in it,
Till the face of Bel be brighten'd, Taranis be propitiated.
Lo their colony half-defended! lo their colony, Camulodune!
There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary.
There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot.
Such is Rome, and this her deity: hear it, Spirit of Cassivelaun!

`Hear it, Gods! the Gods have heard it, O Icenian, O Coritanian!
Doubt not ye the Gods have answer'd, Catieuchlanian, Trinobant.
These have told us all their anger in miraculous utterances,
Thunder, a flying fire in heaven, a murmur heard aerially,
Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred,
Phantom wail of women and children, multitudinous agonies.
Bloodily flow'd the Tamesa rolling phantom bodies of horses and men;
Then a phantom colony smoulder'd on the refluent estuary;
Lastly yonder yester-even, suddenly giddily tottering--
There was one who watch'd and told me--down their statue of Victory fell.
Lo their precious Roman bantling, lo the colony Camulodune,
Shall we teach it a Roman lesson? shall we care to be pitiful?
Shall we deal with it as an infant? shall we dandle it amorously?

`Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
While I roved about the forest, long and bitterly meditating,
There I heard them in the darkness, at the mystical ceremony,
Loosely robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses.
"Fear not, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets!
Tho' the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho' the gathering enemy narrow thee,
Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet!
Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated,
Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable,
Thine the lands of lasting summer, many-blossoming Paradises,
Thine the North and thine the South and thine the battle-thunder of God."
So they chanted: how shall Britain light upon auguries happier?
So they chanted in the darkness, and there cometh a victory now.

Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
Me the wife of rich Prasutagus, me the lover of liberty,
Me they seized and me they tortured, me they lash'd and humiliated,
Me the sport of ribald Veterans, mine of ruffian violators!
See they sit, they hide their faces, miserable in ignominy!
Wherefore in me burns an anger, not by blood to be satiated.
Lo the palaces and the temple, lo the colony Camulodune!
There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory,
Thither at their will they haled the yellow-ringleted Britoness--
Bloodily, bloodily fall the battle-axe, unexhausted, inexorable.
Shout Icenian, Catieuchlanian, shout Coritanian, Trinobant,
Till the victim hear within and yearn to hurry precipitously
Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the smoke in a hurricane whirl'd.
Lo the colony, there they rioted in the city of Cunobeline!
There they drank in cups of emerald, there at tables of ebony lay,
Rolling on their purple couches in their tender effeminacy.
There they dwelt and there they rioted; there--there--they dwell no more.
Burst the gates, and burn the palaces, break the works of the statuary,
Take the hoary Roman head and shatter it, hold it abominable,
Cut the Roman boy to pieces in his lust and voluptuousness,
Lash the maiden into swooning, me they lash'd and humiliated,
Chop the breasts from off the mother, dash the brains of the little one out,
Up my Britons, on my chariot, on my chargers, trample them under us.'

So the Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like,
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters in her fierce volubility.
Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated,
Madly dash'd the darts together, writhing barbarous lineaments,
Made the noise of frosty woodlands, when they shiver in January,
Roar'd as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices,
Yell'd as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory.
So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adversaries
Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand,
Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice,
Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulously,
Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted away.
Out of evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds.
Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies.
Perish'd many a maid and matron, many a valorous legionary.
Fell the colony, city, and citadel, London, Verulam, Camulodune

A Ton of Retrospective

Today, I want to take a little time (or a lot, I’m not sure yet) to reflect on the long and illustrious history of this beacon of internet integrity: A Ton of Bricks, the Blog.

It all started back in June. I was bored, and typing things at work makes me sound busy. I’ve got this big old keyboard that makes loud clackety-clack noises when I type, so everyone thinks, “oh, wow, he must be very busy, he is typing so much.” So I thought to myself, “hey, why don’t you write some crazy garbage and then,” and this is the clincher “put it on the internet so everybody can see it?” And then I answered myself, I said, “Self, that might be stupid, but let’s do it anyway!” And thus was born A Ton Of Bricks. Actually, thus was supposed to be born Anthropomorph (a way cooler name, don’t you think?) but that was already taken so I had to think of something else. And what sucks even more is that the Anthropomorph blog really sucks. I mean it hasn't been updated in like, ten months!

Within 4 days, my readership grew by over 500%. I mean, it went from me to me, my wife and three (of four!) friends. One of my friends, Mike, already had his own blog so I could even put a link on my blog to his. It was sweet. It was even sweeter when he put a link on his blog to mine. And from there, things just blew up! My wife started one, and so did everybody else! Literally. I think the ratio of blogs to people in the world is now approximately 15:1. But a lot of those blogs are just trying to sell me stuff like Viagara and real estate and those weird protein shake things. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, things blowing up. Once, I saw a video of a chemical plant blowing up.

Anyway, before we get to my greatest hits and moments from the past four months (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?) let’s do some scientific analysis of my blog’s history. If you are reading this and thinking “he has too much time on his hands,” you are wrong. My watch died three days ago, so I have no time on my hands and it is driving me crazy. Back to the topic at hand (why am I talking about hands so much???), the blog. The following chart shows both the trend in cumulative words written and the weekly rolling average of words per day, that is, the average number of words written per day for the last week.


As you can see, prior to this post, I have written almost 40,000 words. Okay, a lot of those words come from poems I didn’t write, but I still had to take the time to copy and paste them. The bottom line is that that is a lot of words. And they are all completely useless. I could have used those 40,000 words to write the first 75 pages of a novel or something. Instead, I just polluted the internet with worthless tripe. Unless you’re a publishing agent and you like what you see, then give me a book deal! I will turn you down flat, but then I can tell people at parties that I was offered a book deal by a big company but I turned them down because I am not a sell-out. Unless the money is big enough. Then I’ll be a sell out. Also, please notice that there are no long term trends in the rolling average of words per day. I guess that means I’m pretty consistent. Although there is a trend that I never write anything on the weekends. That’s because I’m not at work. My overall average words per day is 364.7. On days that I make a post, the median is 444 words. The following chart shows how that is broken up among the days of the week.


I guess it should come as no surprise that I apparently get more and more bored as the week goes on, that’s why Friday has the most words. And I know that I just claimed not to write on the weekends, but those average numbers for Saturday and Sunday are just vestigial results from my first few weeks when I had so much to say that I just had to write on weekends.

Finally, to give you a good idea of how the words are distributed in terms of words per day, the following chart shows the frequency distribution of words per day over a range of values.


You can see that this distribution is definitely not normal. It is very highly skewed to the left, and would probably be best modeled as a Poisson distribution, since it is indeed discrete. A Poisson distribution is defined as a discrete probability distribution that expresses the probability of a number of events occurring in a fixed time if these events occur with a known average rate, and are independent of the time since the last event. If you don’t believe me, check this out smarty-pants. I’d estimate the lambda for this distribution, but I don’t really feel like it.

So, after hitting you over the head with some pointless and inconclusive statistical analysis, let’s get to what we all came for in the first place. Remineshen….Reminescences….Reminiscences. There, that’s got it right!

So, follow me as we step back in time and relive some of A Ton of Bricks greatest moments.

This beauty is from July…. “And I was like, "weird, man." Could it just be a coincidence that, within ten minutes, we had seen both the original song and the spoof version ON THE VERY SAME TV???? No way. I figure that the universe was about to "do me in" or something, but at the last minute, totally wussed out because it had grown accustomed to my face. Lucky for me I've got such a lovable face.” That was such an awesome post!

And do you remember this one from July 15th? “And to think that this post started off in my head as a social commentary on why yuppies and hipsters are so stupid. Maybe next time I guess.” I don’t even care what the rest of the post was about, yuppies and hipsters ARE stupid! Ha ha ha!

I still stand by this quotation! “Even if I became the most famous blogger in the whole wide world, I would still never write a book related to it because, come on, that's just stupid.”

And who can forget my first List Tuesday post? You know, the one that included this nugget of wisdom? “The black squirrels that can be seen in various places in the district, especially in the northwest, are not indigenous to the area. Although they are the same species as the common grey squirrel, the black variety were originally brought down from Canada around the turn of the 20th century. Much like the all-too-common Labatt's Blue.”

Let’s not forget this one! “So I take the exit, turn right towards where I can see the truck sitting at a stop sign waiting for me. The following conversation ensues.

Me: Is something the matter?

Him: Can I interest you in a blowjob?

Me:..............Ummmmmmmm..................What??????

Him: Can I interest you in a blowjob?

Me: No! (while simultaneously flooring it)”

And then, remember when I introduced Random Picture Friday? That was so cool. “I stumbled across this little beauty: Livejournal pictures (I'd put the link directly to the post, but I don't know how. It's about 2/3 of the way down the April archive). This post contains the link to a great little page that shows you the last 40 pictures uploaded on Livejournal by anyone, anywhere. It is......fun, to say the least. Here ya go. Enjoy. Please note that some people post some really weird (alright, sick) stuff to their Livejournals, so watch out.”

And I know I still don’t like the misuse of irony! “Rain on your wedding day.
Not ironic, it just sucks.

10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife.
Not ironic. What would be ironic is if you had 10,000 knives yesterday, but you needed a spoon.

A free ride, when you already paid.
How could it be a free ride if you paid? Not only is this not ironic, it doesn't even make sense!

A death row pardon, two minutes too late.
Okay, that is ironic.”

And now, for my penultimate hit, that one time when I wrote about that one thing, remember? “Anyway, in reading this biography I have been formulating a horribly hackneyed and clichéd theory that dying or killing yourself will make you more famouser than other people. The following are a few unresearched and undocumented and sketchy case studies to "prove" my point.” Yeah, that was great.

And now, for the my greatest hit, I know you all remember this one….. “It is very highly skewed to the left, and would probably be best modeled as a Poisson distribution, since it is indeed discrete. A Poisson distribution is defined as a discrete probability distribution that expresses the probability of a number of events occurring in a fixed time if these events occur with a known average rate, and are independent of the time since the last event. If you don’t believe me, check this out smarty-pants. I’d estimate the lambda for this distribution, but I don’t really feel like it.” That one is so good I almost peed my pants.

Actually, there's probably some more good ones, I just got tired of looking. If you have any favorites that didn't show up on this list, let me know so I can read them and then do a total retread of them and pretend it's a new post!

Well, peace out, y’all.


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