The Gates of Cool

After the very minor updates that I made to this site recently, combined with the stark fact that I've now been an inhabitant in the proverbial blogosphere for the past few months, I've started to develop the desire to push my meager and significantly poor programming skills further. Eventually, I'd like to overhaul this site to be more visually appealing and give this site more of what the eternally hip and fatefully cool people call "it." While the realms of cool have never been violated by my mercurial and indivisible aura of nerdiness, I think I could at least approach the gates of cool and imperceptibly lounge around the vicinity. Here's hoping for a better, more tantalizing, vision of digitized paroxysms of delight.

Changes

If you have ever seen this site before, and - for whatever reason - somehow have managed to have miraculously remembered it, then you might notice that I have updated a lot of the information on the side of the pages. I have finally acknowledged that it is summer here on the west coast, after spending the last couple of months trying to ignore it. Regarding some of the old links I would occasionally follow, I've since lost interest, so I have correspondingly removed them. All of the things that I link to now, I have a current interest in for one reason or another.

My overall concept for this particular web design was that I would try to create a three bar design that I've often seen replicated somewhere else. It also fits my impression of what a classic newspaper format would have looked like (like the current Wall Street Journal), and since I do not have any images on the page, I figured that was the style I should try to emulate. The major limiting factor in all of this was, and still remains, my overall lack of HTML knowledge. Therefore, I only a little more than someone who knows nothing. I'm sure the guy who operates and writes Web Pages that Suck would be horrified at my little endeavor. Still, as it stretches my skills as an ultra-novice designer, and is essentially my own creation, I satisfied with it. Eventually I may overhaul it to something more presentable, but for the time being, it will remain as it is.

Holy Worrior

Being a kid during the height of the coin-operated video game boom of the early 80's meant that it was inevitable that I would be hooked on video games for life. One of the hilarious features of the Super Nintendo game "Donkey Kong Country," released sometime in the mid-nineties, was the character Cranky Kong. Cranky would moan about how when he was a young video game character he did not have all these fancy moves, nor need them - No Sir! He contented himself with what they had: 2-D environments and flat-screen mazes, a single move, and his considerable "wit." Although even that game is ancient by today's standards, I felt an odd relation to and camraderie with Cranky because I knew exactly what he was talking about. I'm spent hundreds of allowance dollars playing games that would, in the more sophisticated world of 2003, quickly bore just about everyone: case in point, The Wizard of Wor.

Wow, was I ever hooked on this game. My mother made the mistake of allowing me to hold on to some of the money I had received for my birthday, which I'm sure was rooted in her idea of teaching me some responsibility. Obviously, she assumed that the experience of buying a nice gift at the ever-respectable department store - the place where I usually was brought only to search for school clothes - would teach me all sorts of lessons about value of money and the importance of being a smart consumer. And just maybe, daring to hope, just maybe she believed that I might even suggest that I would like to save it, or start - gasp - a savings account!

Of course, being ten, I turned that parental dream to disaster by, after school, hiking two miles - up the large hill near our place, past the imposing block of apartment buildings, past an open field strewn with litter - to the 7-11 store.

It was a holy pilgrimage.

Once inside this veritable palace of delight, once inside this virtual temple devoted childhood treasures - a place that not only sold candy, but had ice "slurpees," and kept 3 or 4 video games in a secluded corner - I made my way to the tantalizing Wizard of Wor video game, reverently dropped a quarter in (a holy sacrafice), and took on the role of Worrior. I tracked down the Burwors and the Worluks. I navigated countless mazes. I tracked the Wizard himself, only to be defeated. Yet, I was a hero preserving this virtual world from unholy destruction. TWENTY FIVE dollars later (which was spent a quarter at a time and took a few hours) I honorably admitted defeat before the more powerful wizard, but not before vowing that I would return to avenge my pride and defend the realm of 7-11 once more.

Of course, once my mom found out that I spent 25 bucks, I had trouble keeping that vow because I was grounded and banned from going to that store ever again. Then, and sometimes now, I have to ask myself: "Seeing as how (especially in 1982) for a poor ten year-old that was really a lot of money, do I regret that?" As Cranky would say, "No Sir!"

Zoo Autographs

Taking a break from the mountains of actual work that I have been actively avoiding at my data entry/internet specialist job, I updated some of the left sidebar content to include the links for the author Anthony Doerr, and his collection of short stories "The Shell Collector." I admit that I haven't even finished the first story yet; still, I'm very interested in the book so far, both in terms of the content and the artful use of writing style.

Last night, my girlfriend and I - as part of a present that she received from her mother - went to the Big City zoo to see a concert by Suzanne Vega. It was somewhat of a funny gift because her mother says that her daughter (my girlfriend), as a moody teenager, drove her crazy by constantly playing Vega's songs. Although we enjoyed the concert, and saw a lot of animals before the show (including a chimpanzee that slides on its feet in a kind of dance whenever it moves around), the most interesting part of the night occured when we stayed afterwards to get an autograph from Suzanne Vega. Normally, neither of us is the type of person to get autographs, but we thought it might be a fun thing to do since one of the security guards we were standing next to casually mentioned to another concert-goer that the line for autographs was forming up at the bottom of the stage. The real point of the whole evening was making sure that my girlfriend enjoyed herself.

As for the guard at the autograph line, he told some funny/scary stories about being an official zoo security guard at large public events: From chasing a drunk concert crasher around the zoo who, unknowingly, jumped into the grizzly bear enclosure just to escape paying for a ticket, to the five and ten-year-old who - on separate occasions - wandered into the elephant pen and started playing in and around the elephant's legs. Regarding the teenagers who, on another occasion, were dangling their feet inside the tiger enclosure just above the moat - "if they'd have accidently fallen in, the tiger would have eaten them before they even hit the ground."

Blah-ging

It seems like the only time that I'm able to find both the time and the energy to make a post here in the cellar is when I'm also leaving to go the Big City. Technically, I've been home for a day and could have made a post yesterday. Frankly, I've not been doing too well personally and have had a few personal set-backs that are beginning to take their emotional toll, but I'm determined not to turn this into "one of those Blogs." Therefore, you'll not be hearing it from me.

Rather, I'll talk about the heat. Once, my sister traveled a few thousand miles to spend time in Florida, the furtherest southern state she, or I, had ever been to. When the temperature dropped down to 65, everyone was putting on their sweaters and jackets, bewildered by the fact that my sister could still feel hot. She says that she spent most of her day assuring people that she, indeed, was not cold and did not need to cover up. I've been thinking about that these last few hot days. Those self-same people may not think it was very warm at all; but by each sunset, I find that I'm practically drenched in sweat.

If I had enough financial resources, and could have payed for a web hosting service, I might have turned some of this site into a photoblog, because there are times when you'd like to say things with an visual image rather than one carved from words. While I do love words, it would be wonderful to share the light of a sinking sun on small blanched grey, northwestern town with someone who could appreciate it as much as I do. Enjoying those small moments in life - each one like a gift - is something I try remember and keep with me.

Entropy in Big City

Tonight, I leave again for Big City. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to accomplish much while I was home this time, except with the possible exception of paying off my electric bill. I will finish all of the other stuff, including paying more bills, when I return on Tuesday morning; and yes, I'm aware of how many intentions I communicate here and don't follow through on, but I sincerely believe this time will be different. This post is going to be very short, since I haven't done anything other than work, or really thought about anything except how tired I am.

Sunburnt Summer

Recently, I received the letter from my graduate school of choice explaining the TA (teaching assistantship) job requirements to me, some of which included having office hours, attending some of the undergraduate classes, grading papers, preparing presentations, and maybe even, giving a lecture. All of this sounds very interesting; it is beginning to feel more like an official job rather than an extension of my undergraduate studies, which is something that I'm honestly looking forward to. At some point, I'm going to travel to the city where the grad. school is at and spend a whole day exploring, investigating, and doing general reconnaisance.

Unfortunately, the summer schedule that I have chosen for myself remains hectic. I thought about many of things that I still have to do as I drove the hundred plus miles from the big city back to my meager home this morning. (One of those things includes buying some sun screen because my left arm - the one that normally hangs outside of the window on top of the car door - is getting rather burned. Each arm is now a separate color.) My diploma is messed up; despite all of the checking and double checking I tried to do during my last two terms, the registrar still goofed it up. I've also fallen a bit behind with my job, but thankfully, I think I can catch up.

Frankly, I need to figure out how to balance my social life - something I enjoy tremendously - with the part of my life that includes a job and school. At one point last year, I thought that during this summer (2003), I would work hard at applying at all of scholarships I could, devoting several hours to writing great scholarship essays. I even thought I would try to write a book - short stories at least. Unless I change tack, it is not going to happen, although I have at least been able to read a couple of books; so in that regard, I have done at least one thing that I wanted to do. We'll see what the future holds.

The Zeppelin Generation II

When I was very young, about five years old, I occasionally would wake up at about 11:00 p.m. (my bed-time was about 8:00 p.m.), walk the long hallway to the living room and loudly ask that my mother turn the stereo down, which was blasting Led Zeppelin songs like "When the Levee Breaks" and "The Rover," along with the inevitable "Stairway to Heaven." Little did I realize that I was echoing my grandparents who pretty much had said the same thing a few years earlier; truly, I had no desire to be a little "Ike" Eisenhower being a "major bummer," and "coming down hard on a bunch of 'laid back' groove riders," such as my mother and her friends; but alas, my nerdly leaning manifested itself rather early. Still, I try to redeem myself now by saying I was five, and a five-year-old does need to sleep a lot.

Now, however, I look back on that particular memory with some nostalgia because it helps me see my mother, and everyone from my parent's generation not as parents and authority figures, but as the youth of a specific generation fixed in a specific period of time. They were the Vietnam era generation. They watched young men die in a jungle half-a-world-away during their nightly dinner (broadcast with a shocking immediacy we're not likely to ever see again). They felt oppressed by the proverbial "Man." And of course, they believed that the "revolution [would] not be televised."

There are odd intersections between the generations, and as my parents get older, I find that I may be in a position similar to the one when I was five: without saying too much, I'll just mention that unconscious expectations, the force of reality, and the circular nature of experiences through time are things that, for myself, should be reckoned with and given serious thought. Although I'm sure I'm going to have to cope with these thoughts and experiences for a long period of time, I'm going to try harder not be a "major bummer."

The Zeppelin Generation

One day, I'll try to write another post called The Zeppelin Generation which describes how sometimes it is weird living in the shadow of a generation that grew up during the Vietnam War era. There are some odd intersections with the history, daily life, and the youthful aspiration of a generation that you're decidedly not a part of. Unfortunately, I tried to write something like that just a half an hour earlier combining those thoughts with the rock group Led Zeppelin, but the downside of technology reared its digital head and sent that piece of writing into the great unknown. Unfortunately, despite my attempt to save it, I couldn't, and I don't have time to do a rewrite. Insert your own expletive here. Oh well. I'm off to the big city to spend the next couple of days trying to get my girlfriend something for her birthday. Seen you then.

Fireworks and Music

I've pretty much chosen to work on the same days that my girlfriend does, and because she works on a weird 2 days off / 3 days on and vice versa schedule, I've not been as active a poster as I was when I had to go to school during the weekday. I think that I've adjusted very easily to the summer, but I'm still excited about the upcoming school year. Today, I found out that my graduate school is going to send me my job assignment as a TA (teaching assistant) very soon. You'll be hearing about that soon.

On the night of the fourth of July, I drove the several miles on the freeway to the big city just as all of the fireworks were going. Therefore, I had an opportunity to see fireworks from about seven different communities as I passed them along the freeway at about 75 miles an hour. In one sense, it was kind of cool to see this large celebration thing occuring in several towns all at once; the sense of the larger community I had then was unlike any I had ever had before. Yet, the downside of it was that I noticed all of the illegal fireworks that were exploding in places that they shouldn't have been (i.e. crowded neighborhoods). The fire risk from those things was very high, and it was obvious that the police were having trouble being in all places at once. This was one of those occasions were you have to trust that nothing happens, and then wait until the whole thing is over.

On a more staid note, I went a music festival on Sunday in the downtown, waterfront park of the big city. The scenery at sunset was really beautiful - oddly urban and natural at the same time. The music was also pretty good; we saw Etta James, which I must admit I had heard before, but I wouldn't have been able to say so if you had asked me before the concert. Unfortunately, the place was packed. There was barely any place to sit down - and even if you did sit down, more than likely you were staring at someone else's bum, because they, unfortunately, chose to stand up. Oh well, I had a nice time anyway.

Span-glish

Soon, I'll get around to updating much of the information on the side panels. After I graduated from school, and moved out of the old cellar (read: University Computer Lab), I haven't had as much time - or as much computing power - as I would like to get most of it done. DSL and T-1 lines sure are nice; I'm still stuck in the technological dark ages with a 56k modem. Oh, well.

The summer job continues to go along, but I really would like a lot more free time to sit and read some of my critical theory books for literature. I must admit, being a huge nerd and all, I'm a bit excited about graduate school, so I'm doing my best to get caught ahead. Another nerdly thing that I've been doing is reviewing my spanish by listening to the spanish language radio station whenever I take a trip to the big city. I'm afraid that after all of the hard work that I spent trying to pass all of the tests, worrying about whether or not I would get a good grade, doing all of the laborious homewrok, and struggling to understand what was going on in class, I'm might forget all of that hard-won knowledge. Initially, I thought I would be relieved that all of the studying was over; Turns out, it was a life sentence.