fine whine

Hot on the heels of yesterday's thrift shop watch discovery, today I stumbled across two Playstation 2 EyeToy games at another place for well below their regular asking price. Now, for less than the price of either one I got both EyeToy: Play and EyeToy: Groove.

They're fun. I've seen this technology before, having had presentations in my computer graphics class by a guy who installs very high-grade playthings in museums and whatnot that use the same sort of image recognition and response technologies. That said, ET: Play is much, much more accessible and easier to throw in for a five minute workout.

Beating up those ninjas takes effort, after all.

I've done very little with the dancing portions of the games, but more in an effort to avoid Jessica Simpson and Sister Sledge than to face the reality that I have no rhythm and even less coordination.

In completely meaningless news, I have fallen again from my perch atop the google results for the word "whine" and you know what? I feel fine.

Scott brought his friend Eric over today and we worked on building some sawhorses. Earlier this morning I attached a new bottom to a wooden chest Jessica is rebuilding/repairing/refinishing. Later today Eric, Scott and I played Jenga and some card games. My dinner was grilled Johnsonville Brats and some Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and an apple that was definitely red but questionably delicious. Tonight's entertainment was back to back screenings of the Peter Sellers hippy not-classic I love you, Alice B. Toklas and the farcical TV romp Stay tuned with John Ritter, Pam Dawber and some still fairly impressive CGI (the latter film has weathered the time relatively well, the former is now a cultural artifact).

So other than the apple, I don't have too much about which to whine. So it goes.

Well, I haven't gotten any better at posting here in a timely fashion. For that, I blame society.

No, that's not enough. I blame nature. Something this summer, whether it be humidity or poison ivy, has left a small rash on my left wrist. To spare you any more nasty details (it gets itchy when it's sweaty) I'll just say that I've been wearing a pocketwatch for almost the last month. Naturally, this has improved my wrist immensely, but its effects have yet to be fully explored. No longer able to just glance at my wrist to see the local time in convenient digital form, I must now reach into my pocket, press a button, and do the mental tricks to change the hands to the time. This is, of course, a task that any third grader can do but darnit I'm not in third grade anymore.

I'm getting off track here.

I'd like to use my pocketwatching as an excuse for why these updates appear up to a week late. Can I? Only you can decide.

In an unrelated note, I scored big at the resale shop today. I tell Jessica (truthfully) that I don't like going there, but occasionally when I do I find something great (e.g. the monkey). Perhaps it is because I go less frequently... Anyway, this time I stumbled upon on of those classic LED watches that were so briefly popular about three decades ago. I have a couple (well, four if you count my Fossil 2002 knockoff) of them but none work well. I saw, for the pittance of two dollars, a bright shiny stainless steel one in the case today. Naturally I gambled, and six dollars of batteries later, it works! Not only does it tell the time (when the button is pushed) it also can tell the seconds, the date, and even the day of the week. This is the pinnacle of LED watch sophistication, I think. My Fossil doesn't even do the day of the week, after all!

I wasn't able to get a good shot of it showing the time, but I assure you it's quite readable indoors. I haven't tried it out in sunlight yet. Here, take a look.

Nothing exceptional happened today. More of my co-workers are resigning. I've lost two superiors in the past week, one to whom I reported directly and the other for whom I did a large chunk of work everyday.

I'm not sure what to make of this.

The company's going through a couple transitions at once. The people upstairs are trying to reposition the brand at the same time they have hired a consulting team (none named Bob) to help make the business more efficient.

We had to fill out a spreadsheet not too long ago itemizing our daily routines, against a list of some two hundred criteria. The list was badly assembled, I'd say, because 85% at least was completely irrelevant to my work and the other 15% nowhere near as specific as would be useful to anybody trying to streamline my workload. Other companies that have used these consultants have hemorrhaged people numbering in the triple digits, albeit the ones starting with "1". Nobody has said, however, if before everybody at those other companies got sacked, there was a mass exodus.

There's something to be said about rats and ships, or something like that.

National talk like a pirate day is in a week and two days. September 19th. Mark it on ye calendars, landlubbers.

Let me tell you a little about my adventures in waiting yesterday.

It was to be a relaxing day away from the hustle and bustle of the office, all the more welcome after an already lengthened weekend. It. Was. Not.

Pardon the pauses, there, but everything seemed drawn out yesterday and I couldn't help but keep it going for a little bit there. I. Apologize. But. It's. Largely. Beyond. My. Control.

I think my first mistake was trying to get in and out of an Ohio BMV office in less than an hour. Hah. Hah. It. Took. More. Than. An. Hour.

Something more like three hours, all told. After an hour and a half of waiting (including twenty minutes of standing in a line for which I had no reason), I needed to leave to drop by my doctor's office to find out about my cholesterol. It. Was. 207.

Back to the BMV, though, I merely needed to renew my driver's license. Anything I can possibly do online with the BMV, I do (namely, tag renewal), but licenses require an actual visit. At first I stood in the first line I saw (somebody had jokingly called it the express line) and it was useless. I'd noticed that there were no numbers in the dispenser, but like the others around I'd done nothing about it. It wasn't until the stereotypical fat impatient old lady showed up and looked impatient for ten minutes showed up that we got new numbers (thank you, old lady, for getting us the new numbers and butting ahead of the other four of us to take yours first). The number on the wall was 78 and the one in my hand was 11. I knew that this batch started at around 05, though, so that at least was some consolation. 79, 80, 82, 84, 85, and most of the nineties were sitting around the lobby, however, and it was at the number 08 that I left, discouraged. I was tempted to give my number to one of the people I knew to be holding 20s and up, but only tempted.

Some of these people... I know that I sound elitist and misogynistic and snobbish but... they represented several chapters of the dregs of society. I won't go into much detail except to describe a family that stood first in the express line and then grabbed a high number. It was a father, mother, young son and baby in a carrying seat thing. I don't know what they were there to do, but the little brat had taken the baby's pacifier and the father wasn't going to stand for it. His wife was talking in a odd dialect of English usually used to communicate with small children and the mentally handicapped, but doing so with the clerks and the others sitting nearby. Her son was being loud and boisterous and doing everything he could to embarrass the heck out of everybody else. I, for one, think that he should've gotten the pacifier back. He'd been trying to shove it back in his mouth even after dropping it on the floor, but his mom not only took it away but started egging him on to make fun of the dad's stinky hair. When she went to the desk to ask about a bathroom the clerk directed her a block down the street to a Chinese buffet.

I've been to that buffet. They have a hand-printed sign saying "No public restrooms" on the front door.

So I was ten minutes late to the doctor's, but waited another twenty in the room with a recent Reader's Digest. The doctor and I had a brief chat, talked about me needing to take some Niacin and drink red whine or beer, and exercise and whatnot, and then I went on my way.

I came home, grabbed some other stuff and headed out to the BMV to finish out my ordeal. This time I drew the number 09. Two hours and they'd gotten through almost a hundred people, apparently. I thought there might be hope for me yet, and this time I'd come prepared with a portable DVD player and a copy of Neil Simon's play The Sunshine boys set to film and starring George Carlin and Walter Matthau. It was pretty funny, though I think it and me got more than their share of stares in the waiting room.

My license picture's a little odd, too. There was no chair, and when the clerk told me to move to the right evidently I leaned. Oh well, it makes me laugh.

People have lots of reasons why they cannot sleep. As for me, if past experience is any indication, I sometimes cannot sleep because I haven't finished a book. At any given time I'll be midway through two or more tomes, but certain ones seem to keep me awake until I finish them, and only then can I slumber. This is, of course, based purely on conjecture and potential coincidence, but it seems every time that I stay awake far too long to finish a book my restlessness lasts only until that final page.

Two such books in the last week or so were My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn and The Earth abides by George Stewart. It's almost fitting that I read them in that order, as one flows almost naturally from the other. Allow me to explain.

Daniel Quinn is a brilliant guy. My Ishmael is something of a sequel (though it is told alongside) to his debut novel Ishmael, about which I have written earlier, but with the years' accumulated knowledge and further ruminations seamlessly integrated. This, of course, makes no sense to you since you have not read either book.

Well, do it. Read one, then the other. Ishmael is the name of a really smart ape, capable of telepathic communication. He places an ad in the paper saying TEACHER SEEKS PUPIL, must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person. This sort of thing does tend to get a response, and each book is about a single pupil.

Anyway, this time around Ishmael takes on a twelve-year-old girl (or vice versa). They focus on education and the wisdom of tribal civilizations and more. It's a bleak book, at least if you think anything in this way of life works. I can't really describe it any better.

The recreation of the tribal lifestyle is also explored in The Earth abides, but in a more practical sense as a mountain climber comes back to civilization to find that a great majority of people have disappeared or died. He faces the challenge of finding out what happened and rebuilding civilization next.

He answers no classified ad, but it might have read SELF STARTER NEEDED for disaster recovery, must work well alone, own tools a plus. if there'd been one.

Anyway, read the books. Pay close attention to the ways that the downfall of civilization would go differently now, in the age of persistent and redundant communications technology. That, more than anything else, dates the book.

In completely unrelated news, I got my name on Boingboing today. I'm just waiting for the karma and the visitors to roll in.