Life as I see it

Another resturant

2010-09-07T22:52:00.001-04:00

Man, I love the food options here in Springfield, VA. I needed to go food shopping, but I was incredibly hungry. That's never a good idea, so I had to eat something. I had seen this fairly non-descript restaurant with the uninspiring name of "Canton Cafe" near the Trader Joe's I usually go to many times but I had never been hungry enough to actually give the place a go.

Here's the thing, ever since I had really good Chinese food, the stuff here in the States has been really unappetizing. Believe it or not, the best Chinese food I've had wasn't in Beijing (although the duck there was amazing), it was actually in Yemen. Im just a little too squeamish to enjoy a dish that I know is made up of chicken cartilage, goose intestines, or jellyfish. That's the kind of stuff you routinely got over in China. Even when the ingredients were a little tamer, they inevitably left the heads on the thing you were eating, often times gracefully turned back to face you. They couldn't do that in Yemen. The places I ate in were still mostly catering to the Chinese population, so the food had the same vibe as the stuff in Beijing, but they had to stick with more standard cuts of meat, vegetables, etc. It was amazing...

That's a long winded way of saying that I missed that more authentic way of cooking. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the menu at the Canton Cafe and saw a dish called "Duck's blood with yellow scallions." Yowza, that sure sounds like the stuff I could get back in China. Sure enough, the menu was full of duck webbing, heads of things, etc. All of those things were listed under the "Chef's specialties" there was another section for the more typical American fare of chicken with cashews, etc. I got one of the Americanized dishes (general Tso's) both because I'm a little squeamish and I didn't want to spend 20 bucks on lunch. It was a cut above the typical stuff I get, I'll go back again when the Chinese mood strikes me.

I love google voice

2010-09-07T22:39:00.001-04:00

I don't tend to talk on the phone much, but when I do I tend to talk a while. It's a type of calling pattern that makes getting a matching calling plan difficult. I have been using a pay as you go plan that works fairly well. It's 10 cents a minute, but I have unlimited minutes after 7pm.

I have recently discovered google voice. It trumps my calling plan by being free. Can't beat that... In addition to that, my iPod headphones and mic easily outclasses my nasty 20 dollar phone. Here's how you use it. First, you have to have a gmail account. Next, log into the gmail webpage. You'll see a notice on the sidebar on the left about activating google voice, click on it and fro then on your sidebar will look like this:

Once you click on the "call phone" link, you'll see a keypad show up:

Dial your number and away you go! The call quality still isn't up to land line standards, but it's a far sight better than cell phones, especially mine. For right now this is still a free domestic service and they offer really cheap calls even to places like Yemen, Azerbaijan, or Oman (Olga and Rachel, I'm looking at you!).

Like many things google, there is a fair chance this will stay free for a while. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

First "frivolous" purchase... comics

2010-09-04T23:23:00.001-04:00

If you'll remember, the fact that I was saving a decent amount came as a bit of a surprise for me. I decided that I would give myself a break and do some frivolous spending, here's the first example.

I hadn't bought any comic since, I dunno.... my junior year of high school? Actually, the last comic thing I bought was a real extravagance, a hardbound, slipcased collection from Carl Barks. It's signed, etc. I think I spent upwards of 2 or three hundred dollars on it at the time. I should look into what that might be worth these days... Actually, I continue to buy newspaper comics reprints. I've got a ton of the Peanuts strips and I am eagarly awaiting the Pogo compilations as well. I might break down and get the collected Krazy Kat as well.

Anyway, I work with a few guys that are crazy about comics and I've started to read about comics again so I decided to buy some and see if I might get into it again. No, I'm not buying any superhero titles. I just can't shake the adolescent vibe to those. No, instead I'm diving into the so called alternative comics world. A world where comics aren't about heros and villains, it's about telling a story via images and text. My first foray into this is "Sammy the Mouse" by Zak Sally.

This is a pretty weird story, I'm not sure what I think of it yet. I bought the first three issues. The comics themselves, as objects, are lovely. They are on a really heavy stock and stitched together, they even have a slipcover. This title is part of the "Ignatz" series from Fantagraphics. It's named after the brick throwing mouse from Krazy kat. There is a real pleasure from handling a nice object and I'm getting the idea that this is becoming Fantagraphics thing. From what I understand, they represent the folks that are resisting digital comics, these are people that love the books and love the physicality of them. I can sympathize, but I gotta like what's inside, you know?

And right now, I'm not so sure. It is a weird, bitter world that Mr. Sally is making. With three books done, I feel like he is still introducing the story. The graphics are very cartoony, they are done in black and white with brown and blue shading. He manages to convey quite a bit of violence without gore. The cover for the second issue is a good example.

And he also has a real Bergmanesque way of using montage. Comics have the potential for some really different methods of telling stories, it makes it interesting to look at and read. This page ties together 4 different occurrences all going on at the same time.

This isn't a Superman comic! Think I'll continue with the series, it's interesting enough, and the characters are starting to come to life. Those of you out there that are into this world, let me know what else I should look into, I'm getting intrigued by this world. I'm interested in seeing what is possible with this type of storytelling.

Treatment starts soon...

2010-09-03T16:25:00.001-04:00

I finished a slew of phone calls yesterday that set up my Tysabri treatments. Today, I got a call from my neuro telling me that my stuff is in and when can I come in? Exciting stuff. Of course their times and mine don't line up for this next treatment, I'm going to have to ask work to give me a day off that is already scheduled. I'm really excited to get this started.

I can't believe how many hoops have to be jumped through to start the treatment. A pharmacy selected by my insurance company called to make sure I was OK with them supplying the medicine. Umm, NO! I have total devotion to another nameless pharmacy! That was odd, but I had another voicemail from the company that makes the medicine so I had to call them back too.

They have assigned me a case worker for the treatments. Once they start, they will assign a support staff, or something for the treatment. I have never heard of so much baggage to go along with a treatment before. Tree, there is a rather nasty complication that can occur, namely death, but it has only occurred in a third of a percent of the people that have taken it. A third of a percent, I think there is a higher probability of dying on the way to work.

Anyway, I'm excited. With any luck I'll actually get some healing out of this. Odds are it will prevent me from getting worse. In any case, it does feel good to be doing something.

Why am I so strapped for cash?

2010-08-20T23:53:00.001-04:00

Man, every payday rolls around and I still can't do what I had planned on doing. Remember I was going to save up some cash in the form of silver and gold. Well, I'm covering my expenses, but I don't have anything left over. Grrrr, why is that? Well, I do eat out a bit more than I should. That's one possibility. Oh, and there's the fact that I am saving 25% of every paycheck in the form of my 401k contribution and stock purchase.

Right, that probably has something to do with it. I keep forgetting that I am saving a decent amount of money, and it's being invested rather well actually, better than any CD you'll be able to find. Apple stock is generally seen as a safe thing right now, and 10% of my income is going towards discounted purchases of it. It works the same way a CD does, I don't have access to it for 6 months at a time. When I do have access to it, it is still just illiquid enough that I'm not tempted to use it.

I have been wondering how long I should keep that in Apple stock though. It is a tech stock and those are hardly known for their stability. I think long term I'll turn them into something else, but for right now I'll hang on to them.

In the meantime, I'm going to give myself a bit of a break. I am saving at a pretty good clip. With the money I have left over I can pay bills and if I have any left over, I will enjoy. Yes, part of that enjoyment will be with bullion, but I think there are some frivolous purchases coming up too. I'll let you know if any of those are worth talking about...

Not for the faint of heart...

2010-08-16T21:33:00.001-04:00

Wow... Here's a smattering of some really, truly awful album covers, with a special treat at the end! First up, STUFFPARTY!!!!

God only knows what kind of music(?) they play, but anything with hair that bad has to be feared...

Imagine if she was your mother... yelling at you... in GERMAN!!!

Will the roses keep her quiet?

And the rose theme continues... Ladies and Gentlemen I present Joyce!

And if are as captivated by her as I think you are, you should listen to her sing "I Get All Excited" Go on, I dare you....

Ramadan TMI... almost

2010-08-14T15:59:00.001-04:00

I went over to my favorite Pakistani place for lunch today. I wasn't even sure they'd be open since Ramadan had started. For those of you not in the know, Ramadan is a month long holiday that involves fasting during the day. They were open, too many white folks to feed apparently...

Anyway, I was talking to the waitress and mentioned that I almost felt bad eating in front of them (although clearly not bad enough to not eat). When she asked why, I said because of Ramadan. She waved away my worry and said, "I'm not fasting right now either." I started, thinking that she had just told me she was menstruating. It's not the kind of thing you expect to hear from your waitress... You see, menstruating women, the sick, children, and (everyone's favorite modern day loophole) travelers are exempt from fasting.

She continued on and explained that she is working three jobs and simply can't keep up with the fasting. Luckily, I don't think she caught on that I know enough about Ramadan for her to be embarrassed. Yay for narrowly avoided awkward religious moments!

What's worse, deflation or inflation?

2010-08-14T15:50:00.001-04:00

Inflation is the general rise in prices. We get less stuff for the same amount of money. When you look at it in that way, inflation is obviously bad. Our money is worth less since we can't buy as much with it. Any money we have, or will get in the future isn't worth as much. This is what leads to the inevitable reminisces of "I could buy a zillion pounds of x for 10 cents!" when talking about our childhood.

All of us have lived with inflation over the years, mostly of the incremental variety although there was a time in the 70's when it was a little more aggressive. This was accomplished by manipulations of the federal reserve. You see, causing inflation is pretty easy, all you have to do is create more money and things get more expensive. Why would they do that? A lot of it has to do with fear and political pressure.

It's like this, as long as there is a moderate amount of inflation, all costs, including the cost of labor go up. People are fooled into thinking that they are actually making more money, that they can actually buy more, at least over the short term. Eventually, they catch on and demand more money, and then a little inflation kicks in and they are happy. There is an irrational fear of deflation, any movement downwards in the amount in the paycheck make people freak out.

That's what deflation might bring, but what does it mean? When there is deflation, money increases in value. Things drop in price, so we can buy more with any given amount of money. The trick is that wages are just more things, and they will drop if there is general deflation. Never mind that everything else is dropping in price too. Somehow wages rising in order to keep up with inflation doesn't cause any consternation at all whereas wages dropping to keep track with deflation will cause riots. Never mind that inflation kills value, never mind that inflation kills savings.

And that's the real crux of the issue. Americans do not, in general save. If we were a nation of savers, we would welcome deflation with open arms. Deflation would make our savings worth that much more. Instead, we are a nation of debtors. As deflation sets in, debts are more difficult to pay back, all debts. That includes mortgages, credit cards, and T bills.

No, inflation suits us much better. The more inflation there is, the easier it is to pay off debts. Inflationary pressure is built into the very foundation of the banking and financial sector. It encourages people to incur debts, hell, it encourages governments to incur debt. It simultaneously makes it more difficult to save. In addition to have to get paid enough in order to forgo spending the money right away (i.e. interest) we also need to make enough to cover the devaluation of our savings (i.e. inflation).

Imagine a world in which currency continued to increase in value over time. We would be regaled with stories of how our grandparents were paid with $100 bills whereas we now count our micropennies with care. Imagine a world where depositing 10% of your paycheck in the bank would accrue value just sitting there, where the fifty dollars you made last year can now actually buy you more now than then. Imagine how important it would be to save instead of spend...

That's fantasy of course, there are some real complications of a constantly deflating currency but I mention it just to point out how fully we have incorporated expectations of inflation. Our inclination is to spend and go in debt first. We have seen the results of too much debt when the economy doesn't do so well. As someone that doesn't hold any debt and has a small amount of money set aside, I wouldn't mind some deflation at all. Instead, I am sure that the Fed will do anything it can to prevent it, and therefore overshoot and cause larger inflation that is necessary. Hold on to your hats folks, it could get a little wild...

Saw the doc and looked at the MRIs

2010-08-12T20:56:00.001-04:00

Saw my neuro today. The MRIs were better than I had thought they'd be. Yes, there were a few new lesions in my head, but they were pretty small. The big one I had before on my spine has healed up to a large degree.Turns out there are more lower down on my spine, but I'm not sure if those are new or not.

So, it doesn't look as though there has been much progression, WHEW! One thing that really stuck out in my mind was how one lesion can have such a large effect. When I had the first MRIs done, I was having some trouble walking even a half mile. Nowadays I can do a mile fairly easily. I might still weave a bit and stumble, but I can do it. That one lesion caused a lot of my problems. It occurred to me that another one could be just as bad, or worse...

So that cemented it for me. I am going to start on Tyssabri next month. It is a once a month infusion and it seems to have the best results of all of the MS medications out there. I am also going to try a medicine that is supposed to help send signals down to my lower extremities better. I'm hoping I'll get some of my strength back with that.

My doctor had a good analogy for how he treats MS. He sees big things coming for MS in the future. So for now, what he wants to do is keep things from progressing so that I will be ready for the new treatments that come along. He wants me to stand there with my finger in the dike for as long as it takes to get an actual treatment. I'm OK with that. Let's hope that those new treatments come along soon.

Turns out I'm pretty healthy

2010-08-10T21:09:00.001-04:00

I'll always remember my grandmother's next door neighbor. Mike was a nice guy, a great cook (in the neighborhood grilling kind of way) and as far as I could tell practically a saint when it came to dealing with his abusive mother-in-law. He had a whole variety of health issues. He was a long time diabetic, and the last decade of his life he suffered through a series of heart issues as well. He ended up dying of cancer...

Moral of the story is that just because you have one physical issue doesn't mean you can't have others. Most of my worrying involves MS of course, but in the back of my mind is the worry about my heart and cancer. I don't exercise as much as I should, and I've had more than a few suspicious moles cut off of me.

Had my physical today and it looks like I'm the picture of health. All of the cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. numbers are right where they are supposed to be. I don't really have any other complaints (other than the regular ones) and there aren't any sign of worrying moles.

So I'm feeling pretty good. I'll have my neuro exam on thursday. I'm expecting bad news from the MRIs lesion-wise, but I'm also pretty sure that I'll start a treatment program too. With any luck that will lead to an improvement in my motor skills and maybe even some healing in my neurological health. Don't worry, I'll keep you up to date on what goes on. On second thought, worry cause I will keep you up to date:-)

The real value of LastFM

2010-08-10T20:56:00.001-04:00

A little while ago I mentioned that I subscribed to Slacker. I've been using them pretty extensively, and the caching of the stations has been awesome. I can load up my custom stations on my iPod and listen to them in the car. I have not had the actual radio on in the car for quite a while.

I still listen to LastFM too. Until now, I had mostly been using them to get my library in a good mix and to hear their recommendations based on my library. Now that I have a few "friends" on LastFM, I have figured out another great thing about that service. I can essentially borrow my friends' music collections any time I want to. Some of them (Mary, Adam, I'm looking at you) have very similar tastes in music. A couple others aren't so close, but I've heard some amazing things on those stations too. Have I mentioned how much I love internet radio?

Putting things into perspective (military spending)

2010-08-10T12:33:00.001-04:00

CATO's Christopher Preeble makes a lot of sense in his post about Gates's proposels for trimming down the military.

"Gates claims that the U.S. military needs to grow because the world is becoming “more dangerous.” More dangerous than what? The notion that a few hundred al Qaeda ragamuffins and their Taliban allies poses a greater threat to Americans than a nuclear-armed Soviet Union is absurd on its face, and yet we spend more on our military today than at the height of the Cold War."

The plan to cut down on waste by shutting down the Joint Forces Command in Hampton has gotten the predictable responses from the local politicians. The senators, house members, the governor, and the local politicos are unanimous in declaring that the closing of that command will be disastrous to the national security of the nation... oh, and it will adversely affect the local economy too. If military spending is going to be cut, things will have to go away. And guess what Virginia, states that have a heavy military presence are going to get things cut. Trying to make the case that everyone else in the country needs to support this base because Hampton will suffer is absurd. The fact that no one mentions the unfairness of this arrangement galls me. It's one thing if the base actually does protect us in some way, but when the military itself considers it expendable, that should tell us something.

I suppose that this base actually did something at least. There are several senators and congressmen pursuing projects that the military has explicitly stated that they do not want and will not use. This doesn't stop politicians from trying to waste our money for their voters. The building of an alternate engine for the joint strike fighter and the C-17 airplane are conspicuous in their egregious waste of money. These are projects that will not be used, but politicians are pushing them to create jobs in their districts. It's akin to paying people to dig holes and then fill them in again.

I need to stop reading the news, all of this makes me sick.

Awkward dream #5425454

2010-08-06T18:41:00.001-04:00

Last night I dreamed that the Who performed at the school I was attending. Things were going along pretty well until a piano player going to the school screwed up a solo during "Baba O'reilly" and the whole thing came to a screeching halt. Everyone was kind of pissed at how everything turned out and I was hanging out with John Entwisle, the bass player from The Who. I couldn't stop putting my foot in my mouth..

Me: So you must have trouble going to bars and stuff since you're so famous. I mean, not as much of a problem as Roger (Daltry, the lead singer) and Pete (Townsend, the guitarist) cause their really famous.

JE: <raises eyebrow>

Me: Crap, I mean.. you know what I mean... I mean in bass guitar circles, you're huge, but everyone knows who Roger Daltry is... err....

JE: <sighs>

At this moment, I had the same realization as I've had in many other dreams, he's dead. What is he doing here? How can I casually bring this up in a conversation without being rude? I've already made an ass out of myself, how is this going to go over?

I woke up while trying to come up with a good approach to this. I've had this same situation come up a fair number of times and I've never handled it gracefully. I'm scared witless that one time the person I'll be speaking to will ask me, "What are you doing here? I'm dead!"

Newest coin

2010-08-06T00:08:00.001-04:00

Got these in last night.

Unlike the other coins I've ordered, these are actual, official coins. They have a face value of 5 Canadian dollars but are worth around $18 US dollars just in the silver weight. These are the types of coins I'm going to try to keep as a way saving cash. If nothing else, they sure are a lot prettier than pices of paper or bank statements:-)

MRI round 2

2010-08-05T22:29:00.001-04:00

Had my second round of MRIs this week. I had my first one early in 2009 when they were trying to diagnose me. The experiences were quite different. I was a little apprehensive about the first one since I had never had an MRI before, it turned out to be no big deal. The machine resembled an industrial press (think of the machine that killed the Terminator in the first film). I laid there, staring at the top plate and listened to the best of the 70s radio station they were playing.

I should have known this was going to be a little different as soon as they told me to put my earplugs in. I did so without thinking. They then strapped my head into a brace to prevent it from moving. It was quite a bit more sophisticated and tighter than the first one. They then fed me into the tube and started the scanning.

Man, even with the plugs in, it was loud. It was loud but interesting. Anything that is regular has a rhythm and therefore reminds us of music. the first sounds resembled an electronic digerdoo with a mechanical, industrial rhythm section behind it. That then morphed into various sounds that kept me entertained for a little bit. Recordings of noise are never the same as experiencing the sounds directly and I was genuinely captivated for a while.

But only for a while. The trouble with MRIs is that you can't move. You have to stay absolutely still in order to get the clearest results. The brace helps, you would really have to try to make a big movement with it. The thing is that there is nothing to distract you, there is nothing really to look at, there is nothing to hear except the clanging and gyrations of the machine. You end up dividing your time between the merest physical sensations and your thoughts.

My main physical sensations were the myriad itches you get when you can't move. Little itches on your nose become incredibly annoying once you can't touch them. those were nothing as compared to the other one though. About 20 minutes in (out of an hour or so) I really had to pee. That started to become an issue fairly quickly but there wasn't anything to do but gut it out and hope I didn't wet myself. Let me tell you, once they rolled me out of the tube and undid the harness I was on my way to the bathroom. The nurse said I had to sign something before I left. I still have no idea what I signed...

The other thing you can't escape is your thoughts. I can tell you that hour was spent thinking more about MS than the combined year before. I mainly go about my day ignoring, or trying to ignore the effects that MS has on me. There's no running away from it when they are scanning your brain for damage and you can't move a bit. Time drags on and you get so wrapped up in why you are there that you get a little nuts. I can understand why some people would flip out. If you're predisposed to thinking the process is going to be awful, there are plenty of things that can reinforce that. I didn't flip out, but I was left with a real morbid aftertaste to the experience.

I'll talk with my doctor next week about the MRIs. We'll discuss treatment options then. I might need a vacation to lighten my mood...

Net neutrality paranoia

2010-08-05T00:04:00.001-04:00

Once again, the specter of government regulation of the internet rears its head under the banner of net neutrality. Once again, people seem to have their stories confused as to why this is an important topic. We are told that corporations are plotting to give priority to certain types of information speed-wise over others. The networking companies claim this is the only way they can efficiently use their networks, by separating VOIP, streaming video, and email from each other and then charging people for the bandwidth they actually use. Somehow, this is supposed to lead to them filtering information so that people only get what the corporations want them to get.

Tell me that doesn't sound paranoid, go ahead. It also doesn't make any sense. It actually does make sense from the networking end of things to give different types of traffic different priorities, but let's ignore that for a second. Are the companies greedy or not? Do they try to make as much money as possible, do they try to outdo their competition for subscribers?

My question is this, who would subscribe to a service that blocks content? Or to put a different spin on it, how long would it take for a company to advertise that they do not block content or restrict speeds regardless of content? Do you think that would give them a competitive advantage?

See, that's the thing, net neutrality laws are totally unnecessary assuming that there are at least a couple of companies actually competing for subscribers. As long as one company offers non-discriminatory speeds, all of them have to. As long as one of them does not restrict content, none of them can. I say go ahead Comcast, try to implement some content filtering and see what happens. Verizon/cox/everyone else will be licking their chops waiting for your ex-customers.

On the other side of things, allowing congress to get a foothold in the workings of the internet is a very dangerous precedent. Would you want Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, or Jesse Helms mucking around with the internet? No? Then you can't allow Pelosi, Franken, and Frank mess with it either. Leave the internet alone. We will be taken care of, not because the companies want to, but because they have to in order to survive and beat the competition.

Financial cognitive dissonance

2010-08-03T11:41:00.001-04:00

I am buying silver bullion with my Amazon credit card rewards. Put another way, I am using the rewards I get for indebtedness to save long term.

Actually, this could make a lot of sense as long as bad inflation were a certainty. If you knew that the dollar would be devalued, it would make a lot of sense to wrack up debt in dollars to buy commodities (especially gold and silver) that will rise in value with a worthless dollar. It would be the best of both worlds, your debt would be reduced as inflation climbed, and your assets would climb as well. What could go wrong?

Well, the inflation might not happen, that's what could happen. So for now I will still pay off the credit cards every month but use my rewards to sock money away...

25 albums I could listen to all day, any day, all the time...

2010-08-01T00:11:00.001-04:00

Got this from my friend John Carson off of Facebook, here's my list, in no particular order...

1) Trinity Sessions by the Cowboy Junkies

2) Help by the Beatles

3) Cookin' by the Miles Davis Quintet

4) The Shape of Punk to Come by Refused

5) Waitin' for the Night by the Runaways

6) Double Nickels on the Dime by the Minutemen

7) Goldburg Variations (1981) by Glenn Gould

8) Let it Bleed by the Rolling Stones

9) Sarah Vaughn with Clifford Brown by... well, you can guess

10) The Lion and the Cobra by Sinead O'Connor

11) Chapter Two by Roberta Flack

12) Live in London '69 by the Beach Boys (my very first album!)

13) Surfer Rosa by the Pixies

14) 20 All TIme Greatest Hits by James Brown

15) Fear of a Black Planet by Public Enemy

16) Three Feet and Rising by De La Soul

17) Bach the Sonatas and Partitas by Paul Galbraith

18) The Best of Bill Haley and the Comets

19) Live at Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash

20) Elephant by the White Stripes

21) Burnin by Bob Marley and the Wailers

22) Retrospective by KRS 1

23) Sounds of India by Ravi Shankar

24) The Lexicon of Love by ABC

25) RIO by Duran Duran

There's plenty more of course, these are the first ones off the top of my head. I haven't bought any albums in a long time, mostly just singles. I'd like to see some of your lists!

An experiment

2010-07-30T00:09:00.001-04:00

So I figured out the caching feature in Slacker radio. Essentially, I pick the station I want to listen to on my iPod and then tap a button to tell it to cache that station. I've read that it saves about 100 songs per station. I've set up 12 to do that, classics (as in Beatles and Stones), New York Dolls, Potishead, Modern Punk, UK Indie, Silversun Pickups, Pixies and stuff, Buddy Holly Radio, '80s alternative, Indie hits, Classic Jazz, and Indie.

I have decided to go with an all "picked for me playlist" approach for a while. So I've got the Slacker stuff on there, and I've also put some genius playlists on there as well, Punk Mix, New Wave mix, mainstream rock mix, jazz mix, Indie rock mix, Brit-pop and rock mix, alternative pop/rock mix, and Alt. singer/songwriter mix.

What I like about this approach is that I still get the music I like, but it is a surprise for me, and I spend zero effort getting it on my iPod. You laugh, but when you have 34,000+ songs in your library, it's a pain to go through and actually make playlists. Even if I did, I would then face the monotony of knowing exactly what was in them. This approach keeps things fresh. As strange as it may sound, even with 34,000+ songs, you can get into ruts. That's where Slacker comes in. I can once again have the thrill of finding the song on the radio, but I get to skip the songs I don't like.

Ahhh, life is good! Who needs cellular service to enjoy internet radio?

Just subscribed to Slacker Radio

2010-07-28T21:28:00.001-04:00

I've been enjoying Slacker radio on my squeezebox ever since I got it. I love the genre stations I've picked out (Indie, indie hits, 80's alternative, and classic jazz) and the custom stations I've created have also been great. I have never been able to get Pandora to do what I want, but slacker has done the job for me. At 4 bucks a month, it's well worth it to me.

I'm intrigued by their cache option. They say I can cache the station on my iPod touch and then play it offline. For you iPhone users, you do this over wi-fi so you don't chew through your bandwidth limits. That would come in real handy for the car. I'll update you on how that goes. I also have to figure out how to do the song request thing on my squeezebox. I love having the radio without dealing with FM!

The only actress I've ever dreamed of

2010-07-25T22:20:00.001-04:00

I saw "Pandora's Box" in film school. It was the longest silent film I had ever seen, and it was amazing. The thing that made that film, the thing that absolutely cemented it in film history was Louise Brooks. I don't think that there has been another actress so striking, so unforgettable, and so heart breaking since.

"Pandora's Box" was shocking, even to a college student, especially when we thought that all movies from back then were staid and rather conservative. Sex was front and center, as was violence. She managed to combine desirability, innocence, and danger all in one character. She ensnared every man and woman she came in contact with and destroyed them.

It turns out that one of the reasons that Louise Brooks could play the part so well was that she was essentially playing herself. Her hedonism made her notorious back then. In her later years she talked about the many lovers she had and her love of going to lesbian bars in Berlin. She left lovers and husbands with broken hearts in her wake. Luckily for her, life did not imitate art, her character of Lulu in Pandora's box ended up being killed by a sexual predator while Louise Brooks lived to her 70's and reinvented herself as a writer. The rap on her when she was in films was that she couldn't act, that she didn't "do" anything. Film acting was still developing, actors still a tendency to use really big, stage inspired actions. Brooks was quite a bit more restrained, and her style led the way to modern film acting.

If you ever get a chance, please check out "Pandora's Box." It will change your attitude towards silent films and what was possible. Louise Brooks's career was cut short by her self destructive habits and her constant diva antics, but she has become the icon of the 20's and 30's. They don't make them like that anymore...

Charity update

2010-07-18T23:08:00.001-04:00

A while back, I mentioned a "charity" called Kiva. They are a sort of grey area when it comes to charities. They are actually in the micro-finance world, the people that get this money need to pay it back. Some say that micro-finance is an awful thing, poor people should just be given money, no strings attached. I agree when it comes to life or death things, or things that are of a humanitarian nature. The people looking to Kiva for help are different, they are business owners looking to improve their business. They want to make more money, but capital is difficult to come by in developing countries. That's where I come in...

I loan money to these folks and I do not collect any interest on it. That's the charitable bit. Yes, the companies that administer the loans make money, and some people think that those rates are too high. I don't. The fact is that whatever is being charged by Kiva's partners in the field is still less than the alternatives available to folks in those areas. The other good thing about charging interest is that it eliminates free loaders and makes sure that the money is used productively.

What I love about this is that the money I put in comes back so that I can loan it again. I have done this for 10 months now. My finances have only allowed me to make one loan per month so far. So that's $250 I have lent to folks in developing economies. I have now gotten $120 of that back so far. See how this works? If all goes well, I will be able to put $300 a year towards this a year, and I will get most of that back every year as well. So far, there have not been any defaults and the default rates seem to be very low according to Kiva's numbers. By next year, I'll have $600 circulating, the year after that, $900, etc.

It's pretty exciting to have a growing pool of resources to lend to folks. If times ever got really hard for me, I could withdraw those funds and use them myself. What's not to love? I encourage you to check Kiva out, it's a worthwhile thing to do...

It's sexual because we think it's sexual...

2010-07-18T16:48:00.001-04:00

Saudi Arabia is the home of many ludicrous laws based on the premise that it might ignite sexual desire. Any number of things are disallowed or forbidden outright all in the name of keeping people's morals in compliance of a designated morality. I ran across this news article that was about women smoking water pipes in Gaza. Most telling is the quote from an official "It is inappropriate for a woman to sit cross-legged and smoke in public. It harms the image of our people,." Later, the article goes on to say that women smoking water pipes are frowned upon because of the "sexual connotations." It's a wonder that they allow them to eat... I'm not going to get into why it's OK for a man to do it...

The thing is, unless someone told you that there were sexual connotations with smoking a water pipe or crossing your legs, you would never think that there was. I have long held that the crackdown on anything that might possibly have a sexual connotation actually puts sex into the forefront of people's minds. When you live in a place that thinks that water pipes, wet hair, or even the opposite sex immediately brings sex to mind, I think you are pretty sexually repressed. When I was in Yemen, people there would comment on how sexual our culture is. That's true enough, but all of our sexual connotations were about, you know, sex. We don't wig out if someone goes into public with wet hair, eats a banana, or God forbid, talk to a member of the opposite sex. We can do normal things without thinking about sex because we are allowed to think about sex on its own terms. I honestly believe that the cultures that try to enforce laws like that are the most sexually obsessed people on the planet.

The Associated Press: Some Gaza women smolder over Hamas' water-pipe ban: ""

(Via .)

Son of Sam and redemption

2010-07-14T23:29:00.001-04:00

A friend of mine posted this article on her facebook profile with the comment "Sad proof that people will look anywhere for answers to life's questions..." The article is a NYT piece about David Berkowitz, a.k.a the Son of sam, and his transformation over the years from a crazed serial killer to someone that is almost completely different.

I'm not sure what Jen's issue was with the article, but I found it quite compelling. He found Jesus a while back and has since tried to reach out and share some of what he has found. He is also trying to act as a cautionary tale to younger folks. There are some skeptics out there, the article got some statements from some of the folks that tracked him down and helped prosecute him. They are having a hard time believing that someone that was like that could be anything else. In Berkowitz's defense, he has written to the governor and expressed his opinion that he should never get parole and he doesn't make any money from his appearances or writings. He also spends his days as a mobility guide and as an assistant to mentally ill prisoners. It certainly looks like he's on the up and up. If he's not, he has managed to fool a lot of people without any obvious gain for himself.

I find this story interesting on several levels. First off, this is a perfect example of why capital punishment just is not a good thing. Even serial killers are redeemable. Those of you that say, "Sure, he's a nice guy now, but he should PAY for what he did!" I hope you can hear the vengeance speaking. Does killing him make up for 7 lives? Does it change anything? No and no. Locking him up, protecting everyone else from him was the right thing to do. In the meantime he has changed considerably.

The idea of redemption is a tough one for both atheists and Christians. On the one hand, many people that don't believe in God do believe in people's ability to change and get better... unless of course the guy is a monster, then he should probably die. Similarly, Christians hold life sacred, unless of course you do something really bad, then "God's laws" say that you should die. It is people like David Berkowitz that really show us where we stand when it comes to the value of a human life. I have a binary view on that, in my mind you either value life, or don't. Don't get me wrong, I would be sorely tempted to kneecap Stalin or Pol Pot but I like to think that I would manage to not kill them if I had the chance.

I am heartened to see evangelicals paying attention to Berkowitz, there are too many of them that scream "An eye for an eye" instead of "Turn the other cheek." I'm going to do another post on the religious aspects of this but suffice it to say that I think this is the kind of effect Christianity should have on people. Some may sneer at his evangelical beliefs, I myself refer to that type of Christianity as "comic book religion" in my less charitable moments. But as my friend Dana pointed out, "Anything that makes someone not a serial killer is a good thing." Simplistic or not, Berkowitz's beliefs have changed him, and they have the potential to change others. Does that forgive him for what he did? Well, no. Forgiveness can't be earned, it can only be asked for. I will leave it up to you as to whether he should be forgiven, I am happy to see him asking at all.

Image Makeover From Admirers of ‘Son of Sam’ - NYTimes.com: ""

More on AOCS (the problems with real money)

2010-07-07T22:16:00.001-04:00

Previously, I linked to the American Open Currency Standard and said that I would look into what they were about. As it turns out, they are an organization that is trying to get people to use "hard currency" in the form of silver coins (or their backed currency I think). They have a variety of coins that have passed muster and carry their official blessing. I assume that any silver coins would work in their system, not sure what the appeal of their currency in particular is. They have over 22,000 merchants lined up that will accept their silver for payment.

The Free Lakota Bank takes it one step further. They actually are trying to make a go of doing a banking system with hard currency. There are no dollars talked about there, it is all ounces of silver. You deposit ounces of silver, you are charged fees in ounces of silver, and interest is paid in ounces of silver. Here's as close to a mission statement as I can find from them:

"At the Free Lakota Bank, we issue, circulate and accept for deposit only AOCS Approved Silver currencies and other .999 fine silver bullion. Silver is a store of value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Since we deal only in real money, we do not participate in any central bank looting schemes.

Money is made possible only by those who produce. Paper is not money, instead merely a promise to pay. We hope that some day the rest of the world will awaken from the American Dream: the dream that a person can sustain life by consuming more than producing. We call it the American Dream because you must be asleep to believe it. Well, that dream now has a silver lining; as people discover the dream is really a nightmare, the only solution is a return to value: value that comes from production and honest trade."

They offer a transactional account and an investment account. There is a one ounce per month fee for the transactional account and there is a dividend for the investment account, paid in silver of course.

I like what these folks are trying to do, I am a believer in both hard money and backed currencies, but they are fighting an uphill battle. As of right now, silver and gold meet one of the requirements of something being money, and fail two rather critical ones. The metals are an excellent store of value. Their value in terms of dollars varies over time, but it never goes away. You can compare the metals to any currency and find that they always have value. You can't say that about every currency though. Gold and silver have an issue with portability. That stuff weighs a lot. Right now, with silver at all time highs (forgetting the Hunt brothers nonsense) a 100 bucks would be more than I would want to carry around coming in at just under 4 ounces. You can get around this with metal backed currency, but then you run into some of the same problems you do with any currency. Specifically, it is very difficult to ascertain if the currency really is backed up by actual metal. Whoever printed it could, you know, just print it up. Kind of defeats the whole point of hard money.

The big problem facing all hard money proponents is the minor issue that most people and businesses will not accept it in exchange for goods and services. Seeing as that is the most basic definition of money, it's kind of a show stopper. Until I can walk into a 7-11 and pay for stuff with silver (or copper), it isn't actually money. With bad enough inflation people's minds might change, but it would have to be pretty bad. I wonder if anyone has tried a tax dodge by using the actual face values of coins? 1 oz. American eagle gold coins have a face value of $50. That's a laugh of course because the gold in the coin is worth over $1200 at this point. Here's the potential scenario. What if you buy something big, like a house or a car with gold coins? The value of the thing would be covered by the value of the gold, but you could report a legitimate cash transaction at 1/24th the value! Hmmm, I wonder if that's legal?

I received my Amero coins the other day and they are gorgeous. These are really little works of art, and they are more of a collector's thing than a money thing. I will say this, there is something deeply satisfying in holding an ounce of metal in your hand. There is also something very nice about the fact that it has a value intrinsic to it, no matter what is printed on it or where it is from. Paper money seems pretty lame next to it and in the hand. I think the next coin I get will be a Canadian Maple Leaf. They aren't collectable so I won't mind carrying one around with me to show to people. Plus, I can get them with my Amazon rewards points:-)

I promise I'll shut up about this soon, but I've got long term money on the brain right now. Silver and gold are going to play a role in my future, especially if the dollar keeps getting devalued...