Oh, and in what hopefully isn't a portent of the season, the Mets got their clocks cleaned by the Cubs. Of course, it could've been worse:

I like the Sopranos, though I have some problems with it (more another time). The show I've grown to love and is hitting its stride is Third Watch. I don't think there's a lot to watch on primetime but, it certainly stands head and shoulders aboove the rest. Plus, they've been running the old episodes on A and E. I will admit though (having friends who are cops) it's a little odd to see officers in a Brooklyn command on street patrol and responding to calls in upper Manhattan. It's also fun to see the locations, they apparently shot in DUMBO, Williamsburg, East Harlem and Washington Heights.

Today’s quote

"If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow. Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal. We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century, They will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein."

So, last week I was trying to compose a coherent explanation of why I found myself so antagonized by the anti-war demonstrations. It wasn't the protests themselves, people are exercising their right to protest which is one of the things that is really good about this country, when we stop allowing people to disagree or protest this country will become a much worse place for all of us. It was something about the tone of the protests and some of what was implied by the people protesting.

I found some of it a bit disingenuous. While people came out to oppose the war and promote the banner of peace, it's interesting to note there were no huge throngs demonstrating during:

1993 - Operation Restore Hope. US troops in Somalia.

1993 - Operation Southern Watch. US sends 2 dozen cruise missiles into Iraq.

1994 - Operation Support, Uphold and Restore Democracy. Invasion of Haiti.

1995 - Operation Deliberate Force Air strikes in Bosnia.

1995 - IFOR

1996 - Operation Desert Strike. Missile attack on Iraq.

1998 - Operation Infinite Reach. The Sudan-Afghanistan attack

1998 - Operation Determined Falcon. Operation Determine Forge.

1998 - Operation Desert Fox. More missiles into Iraq.

1999 - Operation Allied Force.

Oh, and the quote, President Bill Clinton on February 18, 1998

I had reservations about this but what the heck...

So, my question is this: if someone is compelled to be a martyr (killing themselves for whatever cause they're a zealot about) is it evil to send them on their way, saving them all the trouble and mess of blowing themselves up? Aren't you just facilitating the process and helping them out?

One of the things I would hope to aspire to: producing something good enough to be heard here. If you haven't heard this, it's really worth the listen and it's free! (I've managed to listen to most of them during the day at work). We went to a live broadcast of the show a few years back and it was terrific, if you're in any of the cities on the current tour, it's worth checking out.

A friend of mine went for a biopsy last week. I guess it's an indication of age when words like biopsy can be bandied about between you and your peers.

While we were talking, he described in great detail the procedure and the consequences of it. I was thinking how the most humiliating thing you endure as a young man is being checked for a hernia. As you get older, you don't bat an eye when your doctor begins to shove tubes into parts of your body you'd never imagined having anything shoved into.

I had a colonscopy a few years back and the only thing I could equate it with was I thought it must be what an alien abduction feels like to the abductee. You're in a dark room, there's this strange hissing sound and you have the discomfort of something being wiggled around inside of you. There really is no describing feeling something inside your abdomen like that. And, my doctor was nice! I can't imagine what it must be like for someone whose doctor is a jerk! The doctor and his assistant (his wife) urged me to watch along with them on the monitor as they wormed the fiber optic cable inside of me. Man, I just wanted to close my eyes and get the whole thing over with (a la alien abduction).

So, my friend (who shall remain nameless) wound up having this biopsy of his prostate. The doctor of course went though all the things that might happen after the procedure (which all doctors do but then, what's the alternative not to get the damn test done and wind up with something far worse than what they describe?). And my friend managed to experience all of them, including not being able to urinate, urinating blood (which freaks us guys out ladies, let me tell you) and finally he wound up in the emergency room getting a bag attached to him to aid in the discharge of fluid. Considering what women go through with childbirth and everything else, I'm probably sounding like a big wuss (and so's my friend) but, when he was telling me the story boy, did I feel sorry for him.

Hearing stuff like that puts my problems into perspective, I hate having to deal with that kind of stuff but as we get older all of us do.

The supreme law [of the culture industry] is that they shall not satisfy their desires at any price; they must laugh and be content with laughter. The hidden meanings in all those Beavis and Butt Head cartoons

No joy in Yankeeland tonight, when YES means NO.

I’m more than a little amazed at how many people have been turning out for the anti-war demonstrations. The cynic in me questions the whole protester mentality especially when I read things like this. It’s a tough thing to only get peanut butter when you're a prisoner. Is there such a thing as protester chic? Is there a romanticism attached to the spirit of protesting (60s cool?). I wish people could be as motivated to go out and demonstrate about homelessness, affordable medical coverage and housing in the same kind of numbers (that’s not to say all the people demonstrating don’t care about these things - it's just interesting what makes people show up).

Admittedly, I have reservations about current events but, can anyone really deny removing this guy from power is a bad thing? It’s ironic given there’s no right to protest in Iraq. Some people who have lived in Iraq feel differently.

Saturday, while I was running errands an interviewer on the radio was asking one of the protesters what motivated him to “get off the couch” and get involved with demonstrating. His response was what’s going on in Iraq “isn’t what America is about.”

Ummmm... ever heard of Manifest Destiny? Absent the day they talked about the Monroe doctrine in history class? Never read about Teddy Roosevelt’s views on our country’s role in this hemisphere?






I just came across this image, don't tread on my Mickey D's?

I've been staying away from editorializing on war stuff lately. Just really generic and innocuous links mainly. I found myself very upset by the demonstrations recently. I wanted to clarify my thoughts on why I was so upset and come up with something that was clear and forthright instead of just yelling like the pro war people seem to do. I don't think of myself as pro war but, if you asked someone else they might disagree with me on that point. I spent some time doing research and trying to track down links that would support my views (which I've found) but, as is often the case, I'm better getting some distance from the whole thing before opening my mouth.

I worked yesterday. It was the same monotonous kind of thing I've been doing lately to make money. Time to learn some new tricks.

Shifting gears, watched The Good Girl which was entertaining and indicates Jennifer Aniston may have a career after friends. Hollywood has a nasty habit of churning through actresses on a pretty regular basis though.

Maybe it's the way female characters are treated in popular media which is a link to a site I came across a while back and found very disturbing. I sometime feel embarrassed to still be reading comics but, it's surprising how many movie properties are grown from the industry and there are still things like Ghost World and Strangers in Paradise (which will probably be a movie soon).

Nothing from Raed who has been in the spotlight a lot lately but, there's a link to another interesting blog, Moorish Girl which is worth a look too. Neither of which I would have known about if it wasn't for Margaret's blog.

A follow up to the link about new warfare from the other day. Patriotic hackers?!?!

Also today, I got an email from someone I've missed quite a bit (which made me very happy), I guess people do read this thing.

I've got about 10 entries in varying degrees of being finished, some things leading to nowhere, others a step away from completion here's one:

10 reasons why the Mets will suck this year:

1. Tom Glavine is not the pitcher he used to be. At 38, the Mets didn’t sign a pitcher for the head of their rotation as much as an aging superstar on his way down the slippery slope to retirement, instead of an anchor they got an albatross to hang around their neck for the next four years.

2. Steve Phillips will still manage to make a couple of bad trades before the season is out.

3. Al Leiter and Pedro Astacio are both a year older.

4. Roberto Alomar is a lungee away from being villified in New York. As the year progresses and Alomar’s average remains mired in the mid 200s Mets fans will be the ones doing the spitting.

5. Edgardo Alfonzo is a Giant

6. Bobby Valentine wasn’t the problem after all

7. Art Howe will be Jeff Torborg 2 (remember when Jeff Torborg showed up to manage the Mets, he had come off successful seasons in Chicago). Laid back never plays well in New York.

8. Benitez still means choke in Spanish

9. As good as a guy as Jeromy Burnitz is, some guys just never play well in New York. Burnitz is a small market guy and would be better off being traded closer to home - San Diego.

10. Without Ricky Henderson to coach him, Roger Cedeno sill never be a tremendous basestealer.

10 reasons why the Mets will make the playoffs:

1. Cliff Floyd will provide the long ball threat to complement Piazza that the top of the order that’s been missing.

2. Tom Glavine is the real deal and will give the Mets the one/two punch they’ve been missing since Mike Hampton left Al Leiter to sign with Colorado.

3. Steve Trachsel will show why the Mets were smart to resign him.

4, Wigginton is going to prove he’s a major leaguer.

5. One word: Shinjo, Shinjo, Shinjo.

6. David Cone - 15 game winner?!?!

7. The equation: Slim Fast + Mo Vaughn = 50+ homers.

8. Bell, Hernandez, Clark and McEwing mean there’s a really deep bench.

9. Would you tell Don Baylor no if he gets on you to hustle?

10. Jose Reyes will live up to the hype.

A good news/bad news day, today I found out my mom is still alive.

A new mode of warfare for the new millenium.

Those who oppose war in Iraq must work together to prevent the conflicts that will follow if we fail to tackle car dependency. We must reclaim the streets, promote walking and cycling, strengthen public transport, oppose new road construction and pay the full social cost of car use. We must argue for land-use policies that reduce the need for car travel. We need "urban villages" clustered around public transport nodes, not sprawling car-dependent conurbations. We can all play our part and we must act now.

Another slant on the conflict.

Of course, if we keep moving in this direction but, I can bet we won’t see people in the streets demonstrating about getting better mileage from their cars.

Hey, I was looking at the map and I think I finally found out where Batman is from! No wonder they some say Batman’s a turkey! (Sorry, I’m a sucker for bad puns like that).

So, the last several mornings The People’s Court has been preempted by war coverage, THE TERRORISTS HAVE WON!

Flying to Baghdad? You’ll need this map as you fly over to show you where to bomb. (Yes folks, sarcasm isn’t easily conveyed through a keyboard).

If you have the time, check this out. Of course you’ll have to suffer through a bunch of crappy popups but, there’s a lot of good stuff there.

And I'm sorry but, none of the maps I see on TV really do it for me. So if you’ll forgive the drag in the download time.

So, on MSNBC this morning they were talking about Junior’s daily intelligence briefing and I was thinking it must not be working because he doesn’t seem any smarter to me.

More proof I will probably burn in hell for all eternity, the thing that sits on top of my computer monitor at home, which I think is one of the coolest and goofiest things ever made.

Thought for the day, how many people at the peace demonstrations across the country drove to the demonstration in an SUV?

Today’s question: Who is the Fourth Man?

I found out the answer late last year, the rest of you if you’re lucky will find out sometime later this year or early next on your TV screens. My only hope is that the show can mirror the mystery and quiet excitment of the comic. You wouldn’t think a person would be able to tie Dracula, 50's scifi movies, Sherlock Holmes, Japanese movie monsters, Doc Savage and 60s comic characters into one title but that’s the beauty of what Warren Ellis has done. It could wind up being better than the X-Files or the Spider Man movie (I can hear some people going... “SO?!”) of course they really have to focus on getting the casting right. Boy, I wish I could come up with stuff like this. “It’s a strange world... let’s keep it that way.”

Now if the could just find a way to get a Flex Metallo movie done.

I keep hearing talk about them doing another Batman movie, the movie I want to see is the Miller Dark Knight Returns with Clint Eastwood cast as an aging Batman and Dennis Hopper as an aging Green Arrow.

Ah, “just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in again!”

More later...

Shifting gears, I’ve noticed this trend (I don’t know maybe the last couple of years) where our government (and the talking heads on TV) apply these grandiose names to the events or policies of the moment. I imagine it’s supposed to make them more important somehow or to make them really dramatic sounding and more exciting.

Along those lines, I’ve decided to apply the same practice to the more mundane parts of my daily life. Henceforth my morning visit to the water closet will be referred to as “Operation Drastic Movement.” This will go into effect once I find suitable theme music for the event. I’m thinking something off the soundtrack to Backdraft which also happens to be the incidental music they use for one of my favorite shows, the Iron Chef.

Aside from the war, it was a really good week. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing to say these days - having a decent week while the world is coming to an end. If I don’t do that (have a good week) WON’T THE TERRORISTS HAVE WON?!?!?! (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist).

How many times have you heard people say that? I’m always stricken by how incredibly stupid it sounds. Like if they did win so, what then? I don’t even get the impression they’re smart (the enigmatic terrorists that is) enough to think that far down the road. They’re too caught up in what they’re doing to think rationally, I guess that’s why they’re terrorists.

Anyway, back on topic. It was a really good week! The highpoint was being treated to Dim Sum by Harry. It was nice to get out and enjoy the day (which was truly beautiful) and have a nice leisurely lunch. The big knock on the burbs is not being able to hang so, Dim Sum during the week was a real treat! Sorry all you cubicle critters, this is the way to live.

Later in the day, just through chance I wound up meeting a friend of a friend. Turns out we know a lot of the same people and we hit it off. So, I know we’ll bump into each other again and we were both interested in what the other does so, we’ll see if anything pans out. I gotta get around to doing a business card, every time I get asked for it I just wind up giving the person who asked a blank stare.

Last week, I opted out, and was glad for doing it. Figuring on not working for awhile as fate would have two new clients materialized this week. One big (potentially) and one small - both much easier to work with. And as I wind up this week, I find myself flush and happy for getting a job out without it feeling like I was working in the ER of graphics.

Now, if I could just get around to cleaning the house.

Damn, I've had the TV on all day while I've been working on getting this project out the door. There's this crappy new reality TV show on like every channel. It doesn't matter what channel I put on I can't escape the f***in thing. It's called War in Iraq or Bombs Over Baghdad, the only good thing I can say about the show is that Regis Philbin or Joe Rogan aren't hosts of the damn thing.

So, I wrote this the other day and had second thoughts about posting it. Then I figured what's the point of posting at all if you edit yourself.

Hence:

I heard they're instituting a new security operation. It's codename is Operation Paranoid F**k.

It's not really meant to achieve anything outside of giving people a false sense of security. Oh, at the same time it's meant to burn as much tax money as is humanly possible in the shortest period of time. This will serve the dual goal of increasing the national debt while simultaneously justifying increased military spending at the expense of any domestic social program meant to heighten the standard of living within the US. The Operation will also have the affect of dimishing the Bill of Rights and personal liberty within the nation. If successful, the country will be a police state within five years and all citizens will be required to carry identity cards which must be presented upon demand. Unemployment within the country should abate as a sizable portion of the labor force is conscripted in an attempt to conquer our elusive enemy.

Does anyone really believe we can make the world a totally safe place? If we could, how much of your personal freedom would you be willing to give up in the tradeoff?

Oh, and by the by...

I think this whole thing we're going to war over could be solved a lot simpler and a lot more cheaply. I'm for getting George Bush and Saddam Hussein on a primetime special edition of The Jerry Springer show. I just have to come up with one of those snappy themes they usually use for his show.

The Lesson of No...

So, I learned this really important lesson last week, the question is whether or not it takes.

The lesson was The Lesson of No.

See, I've always been pretty much of a whore when it comes to work (there I’ve said it). This means as much as I hustle, I would be hard pressed to turn down work if it made itself available. So, last week I found myself in a position where it would’ve been best to refuse to be involved with a project, hence the lesson of no.

The client I had worked with in the past had shown a tendency to squeeze me when it came to the amount of time it took to get the job done. They had a habit of underestimating the amount of effort in tightening up a project. It never occurred to them that the projects I had been involved with in the past had generally gone off without a hitch and a lot of that was due to spending quite a bit of time in getting the answers necessary so problems wouldn’t occur later in the process (usually at the printer), being thorough and going through things with a fine tooth comb. Maybe it did occur to them and perhaps they thought somehow they were being overcharged or it could just be as simple as wanting to keep costs down as much as possible - a consequence of the times we live in.

In any case, they came to me with materials on a Tuesday afternoon for a Thursday morning delivery. I didn’t think it was a real deadline (in cases like this, it usually isn’t), and since the materials they were handing off to me were far from complete (no live copy and several layouts still not finalized design wise) I imagined the hard and fast deadline they had was more wishful thinking than reality. Also, since they hadn’t kept to the schedule they originally supplied me, I figured there would be movement on their end.

My mistake.

Their deadline was pretty hard and fast and when they did supply me with the live copy early the following afternoon, they were already clamoring to find out how far I had gotten into the work. I spoke with the production manager after getting the email from her and tried to gauge just how painstaking they wanted me to be. I got the sense she felt I was just being difficult but, after my earlier experience with this client, being squeezed on billable hours and time (and seeing how they were getting billed a straight rate and not a rush rate) I thought it would be good to clarify certain issues going in.

So, I was supplied materials late on a Wednesday for a Thursday morning delivery but, I didn’t say no. They bought another day (so, now the deadline was Friday morning) but, as usual the way things work, the job wasn’t as simple as the client would’ve liked. As I worked my way through it, things didn’t line up, were positioned differently from page to page, leaded differently from page to page (you get the idea).

Now, I find myself in a situation which I dread. I can let things go (even though I know they should be fixed) or I can fix them (which will take more time). If I let them go, since this whole process is like a game of hot potato and since I’m the last person to work with this file, if I let it go, I'll probably wind up getting the lion’s share of the blame if someone’s not happy with the finished product. If I fix it, my client is going to think somehow they are getting jerked around and I’m drawing things out longer than need be.

All of which I could have prevented if I had heeded the lesson of no.

So, I stay up and work my way through the file trying to make the best of the situation and deliver a good finished product. The consequence of this is the deadline I had agreed to with my client passes by like a road sign on a highway when you're doing 80.

I have a heated discussion with the client late in the day. They’re not happy (their deadline is blown), I’m not happy (I’ve pissed them off and haven’t delivered when I agreed to), everything gets kicked back to them.

All of this could have been prevented if I had heeded the lesson of no.

So, I’ve come to realize the next time this happens (and lord I hope that it won’t happen again but, being somewhat thick-headed, you never know), I’ll stop the whole process before it runs down the track derailing like a wildly out of control train. To put it simply, I’ll say no.

No, I'm very sorry but, I can’t help you.

Yeah, the client was late supplying materials. Yeah, the job was more involved than what the client estimated. Yeah, the deadline was tight. I should’ve just said no.

I wouldn’t have alienated the client and I probably would have maintained that relationship (although I don't think it was going in such a great direction anyway). I got an email later from the person I had the heated discussion with apologizing and frankly, I couldn’t hold it against the person for I felt they had every right to be upset. Also, I made certain assumptions about the people in the office communicating with one and I should realize by now doesn’t happen as much as it should or as much as I think it does.

Well, live and learn as they say and hopefully at some point down the road, I’ll get a chance to work with the client again (though I can see where I wouldn’t) and we’ll both do a better job of working together.

Maybe next time, I’ll do a better job of heeding the Lesson of No.

Oh, and we're apparently going to war again. Everytime I see Junior talking about it, I am reminded of the old Marx Brothers film Duck Soup and Rufus T FireFly's call to war.

So, yesterday I tried making an entry about five times and five times:

CRASH!


It was frustrating as hell. I have doggedly resisted upgrading equipment and software, actually I haven't really had that much time to do those kind of things, now I'm thinking I don't have a choice. I have everything here to do it, I just want to do all the reading and research to make it as easy as possible.

Also, the truth is I use my laptop more than anything else, so the station hooked up to the dialup has really languished in some ways. That's the problem with having so much equipment lying around the house. I have to break down the clone and cannibalize some of the parts to move over to another machine I have broken down and wanted to clean.

So, all the stuff I was going to write about the Mets and the other entry about the "Lesson of No" will have to wait for another day.

Of course, the good news is they expect the temperature to top out around 70° and I don't have anywhere to be so, I can enjoy the beautiful day.

Three cats and a truckload of stuff later...

Mother nature cooperated by providing us with the first taste of spring today. R's friend had sent two of his friends along to help out with the move (he has a barbershop and Saturday is his busy day). Both of the guys were Southsiders who had lived in the neighborhood since the late 60's. They had a different view of the gentrification of Williamsburg than most.

We got down to Brooklyn later than we would have liked but it didn't really matter as R still hadn't packed most of her stuff. You could get the sense the move was somewhat overwhelming for her. She had been in her place for five years and she and I are similar in that we are both pack rats.

So, the truck wasn't even loaded and we got a chance to pack it up. Once upon a time I delivered refrigerators and washing machines for a living and those skills proved useful when packing the truck and then unloading it at the other end. The truck was packing full by around 1:30. The truck drove about a half a block and then we got about unpacking it. So, the move was about five minutes but, the packing and unpacking of the truck took hours.

Some of the kids in the neighborhood helped with the unloading which made things go much faster on the back end. Now, R is in her new place with all her stuff. Of course since her new place is that much smaller than her old place, her stuff is piled up almost to the ceiling and I worry as R probably tops out at around 5ft.

Then I went into the city and packed up all my personal effects from the gig I've been at for the last few months. I got a chance to take pictures of the view out my window which was probably the thing I liked most about the job. If I can figure out how to do it, I'll post them. I really liked that view. I looked out at probably the last real Times Square block in the city. There was a porno theater, a sex shop, an adult video store and a topless bar all on the block opposite the office.

I never got a chance to go in any of those places, not that I wouldn't of and it sure seemed that they had a pretty steady clientele without me there. I can't imagine they'll be around much longer. They're in the process of breaking ground for the new Times building across from the PA terminal and it seems like the sanitizing of Times Square is making it's inexorable way to completion. I like Times Square now, lots of cool neon.

Believe me I wandered around Times Square enough in my youth to have enjoyed its seedy past and I am old enough to remember what is was like.

I stood on a line that wrapped it's way from Times Square back up to Sixth Avenue to see a band I hadn't heard of:

It was one of the best shows I ever went to and I wound up seeing the same band two more times.

Of course that doesn't even speak to the movies I saw first run in Times Square - the big secret these days in Times Square is the second run movie house in the bottom of the Virgin Store where we went to a movie one Friday night recently for only $5!

Anyway, if I get motivated, maybe I'll get around to making an animation of that marquee I sat across from. I thought I'd use that as a downtime project, giving myself the chance to learn something new but, there didn't seem to be any downtime at that place.

Moving day.

Today we're helping a friend move. It involves getting up really early and driving to Brooklyn. I don't mind the moving part as much as I mind the drive.

The friend we're helping out is moving to a smaller (read cheaper) apartment in her neighborhood. Her old place was this large space in the ground floor of a building situated in the middle of a parking lot in Williamsburg. It was a lot of space but, I'm not big on ground floor apartments myself and there were bars on all the windows. (doing time in Brooklyn). The move in part was necessitated by my friend's being out of work for almost two years.

This is a tough business.

Her situation underlines the desperation I see and hear when I talk to people about their jobs these days. People are either looking for a job or in a job they're not crazy about or worried about losing their job or even all three.

Originally I thought it would be tough to help out because of other things going on but, things change and truth be told I'd rather be helping my friend out than doing the other things I was supposed to do.

Well, this feels somewhat akin to walking into a new house: a big open space, empty rooms and bare walls. You look around and try to figure out what you're going to put in the house and what you're going to hang on the walls. And like a new house, there are no shades or blinds covering the windows so, you wind up feeling a little exposed.

Admittedly, there is a certain amount of exhibitionism implied by the act of writing down your thoughts and posting them onto the web for the world to see. I don't know what I'll put up here or how bold I'll be. I hope to exercise muscles that aren't used as much as I would like to keep them from atrophying. If anything, I'll wind up showing the world just how horribly I spell and how badly I can mangle the English language.

I spend so much god awful time sitting in front of a computer, you'd think it should wind up being a little productive. Time will tell and I guess we'll just have to see.