Coffee
nectar of the gods
that which brings the mind awake and causes the hands to shake
so good in so many ways
espresso, mocha, straight-up, iced
fair-trade
home brewed
caffine, caffine, caffine
sweet bitterness when alone
bitter sweetness when combined
sugar
milk
syrup
other things nice
too much and the mind won't rest
not enough and the pain's a pest
tea is not so much for me (though it is quite nice)
I'd much prefer a cup of coffee.
[Begin rant]
MN Constitutional amendment for Gas tax increase. Here's my take, how about you just RAISE THE TAX! Do we seriously need a State constitutional amendment for a tax increase so that you can say in 2006 'I didn't raise taxes.' when in fact you did in the form of fees, amendments, and property taxes (Cities and municipalities have to pay for basic services somehow). Thank you Pawlenty for bankrupting our State. We better hurry though, soon Bush will sign that law that will make it harder to file. Here a hint for you Pawlenty, start figuring out what you are going to do in 2007. Because it will not be as Govenor. MN has a history of not re-electing Govenors who do not take care of business and who stand on the 'No New Taxes' platform. A government casino is not the answer. The answer, sooner or later, whether you like it or not, will be an increase in taxes. The standard of living is slipping, our public education is slipping and our public safety (among others) is slipping because you refuse to raise taxes and pay for services. You are passing the buck, big-time and soon people will figure this out.
[End rant]
Ah, I feel much better now.
On May 19th, the third of six and in all liklihood, final regular episode of the Star Wars film sextet will be released. As a great fan of genre (science fiction and fantasy), I must say I look to this with a certain sad resignation.
What fascinating world George Lucas created in my childhood, I now realize in my adult years that he did so largely by accident. The first Star Wars film, while not novel in any storytelling, was a pure creative icon, and the birth of modern science fiction on film. Taking Campbellian heroes and archetypes, and in turn using them to craft a scifi homage to Kurosawa's films, among other influences, Lucas created the most memorable films of my childhood. The follow-up, Episode V, was perhaps an even better film. Note that this is the film that Lucas had the least role in. Since then, his films have gone downhill. Episode VI was childish in many regards, and pointless in its redemption plotline, due to the lack of (pretty stupid) backstory that would follow in Episodes I and II. George Lucas' idiotic two-dimensional morality, obsession with drag racing, inability to see why his Campbellian 'heroes' are the way they are, the inability to pick a hero in the most recent two films, and a score of other problems has lead to a franchise that is at best damaged goods. David Brin
http://www.davidbrin.com/starwarsarticle1.html
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/06/15/brin_main/index.html
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/06/15/brin_side/index.html
has already made some excellent points. When you strip away the almost unbelievable (and sometimes quite unbelievable - see Yoda turbo midget ninja) technical prowess with digital effects in the most recent spate of films, you end up with films not many levels beyond B-grade horror, bad sweaty epics, or even Plan 9 from Outer Space. The characters are flat, unnuanced, flawed, yet take the roles of redeemable demigods. I can look back to The Phantom Menace and the only thing I found compelling was the skill with which (Scotsman Martial Arts Expert) Ray Park [aka Darth Maul] could move. The difference in disappointment between the Star Wars films and, say, The Matrix, was that the coolness of ANH and ESB had almsot twenty years to gel in my head, whereas the Matrix produced one great film, one bad film, and one film I have refused to see since I heard it was even worse than film two.
This brings me to some of the problems of science fiction in general. There seems to be a certain opinion that you can forgo plot, characters, and all the things that make up drama, and in their place put CGI porn. George Lucas' legacy may end up being ILM more than any film he made. There have been scores of uncompelling science fiction worlds on film, and reliance on computer rendered explosions to draw audiences is a major reason why. The best science fiction has been niche in recent years. I'll leave my 'sad resignation' over Star Trek for another day.
Having watched the trailer, I have no doubt that Episode III will be much of the same. Flat acting, CGI candy, and a whole lot of story to get through with a director who seems not up to the task. At least it is nice to see Christopher Lee getting some work.
So, do I go?
Yeah, as much as I don't want to enable George Lucas and Fox with my $9, I need some closure (not something I usually desire). If it is the final nail in the coffin of my rosier memories of Luke and Han (shoots first!) and Leia, then so be it.
Oh, and please note that "Serenity", likely to be a far better scifi film out Septmeber 30, was supposed to be out around the same time and moved its release because of not wanting to compete with Lucas' overblown gasbag franchise finale. Perhaps there is a future for science fiction, one that has compelling flawed heroes and good storytelling. But it is not likely to be Star Wars, and perhaps that is a lesson to learn from this.
Subjects: two males, approximately 18 years of age, of the 'jock' phenotype
Subjects were monitored from a distance of approximately 3m while waiting for a street light to change. Subjects were sitting on a bench loudly discussing a topic. Conversation lasted approximately 30 seconds. Cryptographic analysis of the conversation has only been partially successful in decoding the contents of the conversation.
Transcript of conversation:
Jock 1 (Subject A): "Fuck this fucking sucks! Fuck this fucking thing...I mean fuck!"
Jock 2 (Subject B): "Yeah, no shit dude, no shit."
Jock 1 (Subject A): "Fuck these fucking things, I mean what the fuck?"
Jock 2 (Subject B): "Yep, no shit dude."
Cryptographic Analysis:
Jock 1 (Subject A): "So you see, I think what Shakespeare was trying to do with 'MacBeth' was more trancendental than what is implied in the text."
Jock 2 (Subject B): "I see your point good chap. A very astute observation."
Jock 1 (Subject A): "Quite."
Jock 2 (Subject B): "Word."
from (http://www.mybiopro.com/BioProTemplate.aspx?ItemID=667&ID=awengrove)
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i·ro·ny 
P Pronunciation Key (
r
-n
, r-)
n. pl. i·ro·nies
Mine, gifted to me by 'Micky' in 1993 is...'Special K'
(my drag name given to me by another friend in 1998 was 'Ta-Ta')
I heard sad, but not unexpected news today as to the death of Pope John Paul II.
I was raised Catholic (baptism, first communion, etc.) but I abandoned the Church when I was 11. I didn't (and still don't) like the dogma of organized religion. My spirituality is my own, personal to me and no one else. My issues with g(G)od are between me and g(G)od.
Eventhough I am no longer Catholic (a friend once said 'you are never ex-Catholic, merely a recovering Catholic'), the trappings of ritual of the Church are still with me, in the back of my mind in the sub-conscious. I can't get rid of them, they are a part of me. The Catholic Church is a monolithic religion spanning the globe. The Pope wields immense power and influence. While I do not agree most of the initiatives that John Paul II mandated as Pope (such as the strict adherence to rules against artificial birth control which is a danger in the day and age of AIDS. There is also the 'Culture of Life' thing as well.), he did use some of his papal powers for good. Examples that stand out for me are:
1. The rennouncement of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. I agree with the Holy Father on this one. It was a mistake for us to invade. It has done nothing to make our country more secure, and probably made the world a more dangerous place for us. What happened to bin Laden and that group called Al'Qaeda?
2. He has made efforts to heal some of the rifts between the Jewish faith and Catholicism. He will probably be known as the great reconcilier. The NPR reporter speculated that he will be know as a 'the Great' a title only shared with Leo and Gregory. He was the first Pope to set foot in a Mosque (in Damascus). However he has not had as much luck re-uniting the Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches since the Iron Curtain fell and Communism declined. He has also had limited success healing the rift with the Anglican Church due that churches appointment of women as priests. Reconciliations between the major religions is a good thing, as
3. He granted an audience to Bono from U2 to discuss third world debt. Granted Bono did not make much headway, but not just anyone can get a meeting with the Pope. The fact that JP2 would grant an audience with a pop-star in my opinion proves that had an eye on pop-culture, and he made efforts to appeal to a younger generation of the faithful.
He also had his failings and some of his doctrine and dogma has and will prove to be detrimental. But as he just passed, I will not mention those here as history will judge him.
I hope that the next Pope will be more open to the realities of the modern age and help to reform and modernize the Catholic Church. Issues I view important that the next Pope will have to address are the usual; birth control, women as priests, homosexuality, and allowing priests to marry.
Watch for the white smoke over the Sistine Chapel, it means a new Pope has been selected (as the ballots are burned).
Dear Senator Kerry,
This is Kerry voter # 30,459,958. I was a true believer for you during the campaign. I put up a yard sign emblazoned with your bland catch phrase, wore a Kerry Edwards button, converted a couple centrists, and even stood outside for an hour during a cold October day to attend a 50 minute Kerry rally. In short, I had your back.
Then Election Day came, crushed my liberal spirit, and I joined millions of Americans wallowing in political depression for weeks. Kudos to you for not growing bitter, bulbous, or a beard a la Al Gore circa 2000. You appeared to brush yourself off and get on with life. So too did I.
But lately something has been bothering me, Senator, and it's you.
I happend to see your picture in a magazine. There you were, standing on a chair in an everyman's bar, arms out, suit on. Surrounded by earnestly watching fresh faced youths and combat amputees - you were campaigning!
What happened this past campaign season cannot be pinned simply on you, nor do I think other Democrats feel you to be solely responsible. The lesson we learned, as The Daily Show concluded, is that the Republicans are just better at this than we are. But that's as far as the good will goes. You were forgiven because the party needed a wake up call - not because you rallied the troops and inspired the undecided. No, Senator, most of us voted for you to get Bush out...myself included. Those 59,028,109 votes are fool's gold.
The future of the Democratic party is at stake. We cannot continue to launch centrists almost indistinguishable from the Republicans. We will not reclaim the White House as the Republican Lite party. Voters need to be moved by our candidate, moved by our ideas, not simply the hope of ousting the other guy.
I want to close this by thanking you for your service to this country, but please, Senator, your time in the national spot light has finished. Go away.
One of the Twin Cities local papers the 'City Pages' a few weeks ago ran an article about Pizza Delievery. It was a great article. They started a blog about the topic called 'Streets of Pizza', it's a great read.
Anyone who loved the protagonist in Snow_Crash by Neil Stephenson, will love this blog.
Monsieuer Le Chat is the name I gave a neighborhood cat that adopted us in St Paul. We actually do not know whose cat he is as we see him at various other houses on the block. He is a very urbane and street smart cat, very intelligent, very wise. He is a gray tabby with notched ears and a snaggle-tooth mouth that indicates he has had some trauma in his earlier years. He always amazes me. We live on a block that is zoned half-industrial, with large trucks terrorizing the roadways from 8am-5pm Monday-Friday. He knew to watch the street in both directions, and cross when there were no cars.
He was a constant companion in the summers while working in the garden. In the winter we would let him stay on our porch to warm up. We always fed him, the same stuff we fed our indoor cats (Science Diet). He's a good friend. We have known him for years. He has many names we have heard him called, 'Stray', 'Damn Cat', 'Shithead', but all in loving and joking tones. But to me he was 'Monsieur Le Chat.'
After we moved to Rochester, we do not spend much time at the house in St Paul. Basically waiting the winter out until spring when we will finish moving and sell the house.
Even though I have not seen him in almost four months. He still remembers me. I stood outside making a call on my cell phone (the lead paint on the old walls of the house make for poor signal). He came running across the the street to say 'hi'. We still have some food and his dish for when he used to visit. I spent some time with him and gave him some food. It was like catching up with an old friend. He stayed a while until his stomach was full and his need for attention met, then he disappeared like he always does into the night.
I will miss him, and I suspect he will miss us. He was one of those little things that will be missed from the old neighborhood.
To quote T.S. Elliott, "...I shall wear my trousers rolled..."
I don't know where I am going with this post. Merely seeing where my mind goes when I let it wander.
Life, as a journey, not a destination.
An eccentric person at a discussion I was once in said that he was "...over the rainbow man! I'm speaking to you from the destination!", he said some other things as well as had a fetish for purple. At the time I thought "holy shit, this guy is nuts." And he was, but this phrase has stuck to me. A meme, bouncing around in my mind.
In an episode of 'Dr. Who' (the exact episode name escapes me, but the Doctor was played by Tom Baker) the character of the Doctor said, "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. BUT! It is not necessarily the most interesting."
Yeah, I can dig that.
When I was younger (mind you I am not really that old) I believed that growing up would be the proverbial 'it' (as in shiz-nit). But now that I am, by legal definitions at least, 'grown up' I've learned to value a few things I never thought of as a child. The 'shiz-n' is still there, but the 'it' is different. For example:
- the warmth of a cat, slightly purring while napping in your lap
- the personality of fish (koi mainly) and their like of watching TV
- loyal friends
- a good cup of coffee
- a shitty cup of coffee drank among friends engaged in good conversation
- the last 30 seconds before the alarm goes off
I thought 21 would be a magic age. It was, but not how I expected it. I did go to a bar on my birthday, but it was a small dive in rural MN called 'The TNT Bar.' It was the kind of bar that I image you would expect to see in a small town. It was never really busy, its clientele were locals, a few of whom were alcoholics. It had a jukebox that was also a karoake machine. My dad took me there. The beer selection was 'Pabst Blue Ribbon', 'Grain Belt Premium', 'Budweiser', or 'Coors'. Hard liquor was simply a shot of Jack Daniels or Yukon Jack. I am not going to sugar coat this, the place was shit-hole. It was smoky and dimly lit. But I didn't care, what I remember most about that was being there with my father. Now my father does not really drink, nor is he the bar going type. We went to the TNT because it was close to our house (mind you we lived in the country, it was pretty much 20 miles to anywhere). He was just happy to be the first one to buy his son a drink.
Fast forward a few years to my Bachelor Party. It wasn't at a strip club like I kind of thought it would be (or perhaps was conditioned to believe from TV), instead it was around a campfire with a case of beer (Pig's Eye Ice, my tastes were simpler then as was my palate), my best friend, my cousin, and my father. We sat around the fire and told stories and reminisced until 3am.
Anyways I guess what I am getting at is, to quote another movie, "Life is like a box of chocolates." You never know what you are going to get, and some people can't open the box.
In closing I leave you with something from 'Conan the Barbarian', more words of wisdom about life.
chieftain: "Conan! What is best in life?"
Conan (in a thick Austrian accent): "To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of de vemen."
Eh, fuck it.
Location: Rochester, Minnesota, United States of America, Earth, Sol, Milky Way, This Universe (or there abouts)
Rochester MN, the home of the World Famous Mayo Clinic (tm? sm? something?), as well as a large IBM design and manufacturing facility (specializing in RISC chips for the pSeries systems, and home of Blue Gene, the new super-computer for bioinformatics). It is located ~80 miles south of the Twin Cities' core cities of St Paul and/or Minneapolis. Connected conviently via Hwy 52. Its a boring drive across declining farmland and increasing town homes. Since last summer there are only two stop lights to interrupt the auto-pilot, and both are at about the half-way mark in Cannon Falls.
Rochester is a small city of about 90,000 people. Roughly 1/3 of which work for Mayo, 1/3 for IBM and the rest in hospitality/support industries for the area. There is also a Federal Prison Medical Center. Rochester because of Mayo is actually quite diverse for a rural Midwest city. People from all over the world pass through here, for the Clinic, IBM, or just as a stopping point. So as a result Rochester has a fairly diverse collection of ethnic dining. I say diverse using Minnesota standards, the Minnesotan pallete is usually quite bland, so that fact that a city of this size has many italian, mexcian, chinese, and a few indian restaurants is impressive. There is also on the periphery the obligatory American sprinkling of franchises, Wal-Mart, Shop-Ko, Target, Menards, Home Depot, McDonalds, Noodles and Co, etc., etc., ad nausem. This are situated in the new development areas where fields and woods have recently been converted into vast expanses of town homes. But for purposes of this discussion I will focus mainly on the older parts of the city and downtown more specifically.
Here is my list of coffeehouses, broken down by type:
Locally owned, specifically coffee only: 2
Marcelli's - a nice coffee house with good pastry, and excellent coffee. It is only open from ~6am-5pm. Across from St Mary's.
Double Click Internet Cafe - the only internet cafe I found in town, but with the prevelance of wi-fi here, almost everywhere has access. But the Double Click has computers you can rent. Coffee is pretty good, but the atmosphere and the building in which it is situated are really its main draw. Limited selection of pastries. Being someone who works with all things *nix, this is my place. Wi-Fi, shot of espresso, table with a view, power outlet = heaven. They close around 8pm.
Locallly owned, coffee plus other sutff: a few
(I have not hit every place in town that servers coffee as well as food or meals, so I will list the ones I have been too)
Jaspers - easily my favorite place. It is a bistro that servers espresso drinks, pastries and an affordable lunch. In the evening it is a location of fine dining and the menu gets prohibitively expensive. I enjoy a single-shot of espresso here. Nice building, nice atmosphere.
Franchises, not-locally owned: a lot
Caribou - located in the 'Subway' which is the warren of underground tunnels that connect everything in downtown Rochester (because of winter). Its Caribou, anyone who has ever been to one will know what it is like.
Starbucks -
Dunn Bros - various locations. The one by the Apache Mall has a drive thru.
Panera Bread - great sandwiches and pastries (tho a bit spendy). The coffee is decent and they have a giant fireplace which is nice on cold mornings.
Espresso Express (or Java Drive...something like this) - drive thru espresso. Don't have to get out of your car.
This town needs a local coffeeshop open after 9pm.
Did I mention there is also no brunch place...
I strongly recommend any Linux users check out CodeWeavers (a superset of wine, costs ~$40, but you are helping support Open Source Software). With it, I was able to get iTunes/QuickTime working on my SuSE install, meaning I can use my iTunes account at work now.
iTunes runs as well (if not a little better) than on native WinXP, however it does have the same problem of not being able to burn CDs. But since I just want to use it for my iTunes account (b/c of Apple DRM and I want to keep it legal, i.e. not use a hack), it works great (XMMS is a better mp3 player for *nix I've found).
Check it out. I recommend it (for what that's worth).
Doh. I upgraded to WinXP SP2, simply because I was tired of unchecking it on my windows update refreshes. I figured that it has been out long enough that the bugs have been identified and most of the ISVs had patches to fix issues with SP2 (mainly the AV vendors). So I updated and I knew a few of my ancient programs would not work, but since I no longer used them I didn't care.
Then I went to install iTunes. I like iTune's interface and it is a quality mp3 player. I don't have an iPod, I merely wanted to use it instead of winamp (which is still one of my favorite mp3 players). But what iTunes has that winamp does not have is the ability to see you whole library and easily manipulate it.
I found out the hard way that WinXP SP2 and iTunes do not work together. It errors on install with a message about 'GEARAspiWDM.sys'. I found some help in this forum thread. My solution was to follow the suggestion of when you get the error dialog box, go out to
I hope Apple fixes this. I really like iTunes.
Category: Action/First Person (with elements of RPG, and it has stealth if call using explosives to sneak into a place stealthy...)
Rating: T for Teen (on a side note I hear SW Ep3 will be PG-13...)
Synopsis: You are Delta-38 the leader of a 4-man clone commando squad. You are born in a vat like all other clone troopers, but from birth you received extra training and better equipment to allow you to become a lethal weapon of the Republic. You have trained all your life with 3 other commandos who form your squad; Delta-40 (code slicer specialist), Delta-07 (sniper), and Delta-62 (demolitions) (your specialty is close-combat). This game is meant to help span some of the storyline starting from the battle for Geonosis to Ep3 and supposedly hints about Ep3 are given as you progress through the game (only seeing Ep3 will prove this true or not).
Pluses:
- Good graphics
- easy to use squad control interface
- relatively good and robust AI, especially for your fellow commandos
- excellent sound effects (I turn the music off in games such as this so I to be more immersed in the environment)
- multi-player
- the squad (nice to have backup)
- your armor looks cool
- you can use turrets to help
- the Wookies look cool
Minuses:
- Linear gameplay and often only one way to do things that is laid out before you. At least it does not feel you are being ram-rodded into the story thanks to the help of your handler named 'Advisor'
- Super Battle Droids are tough, which they are supposed to be, but when faced with more than 2 and no more grenades, you are screwed
- Squad has unlimited ammo, while during points of the game this is a good thing to have, it does detract from the immersion since you only have a limited amount of ammo (except for your pistol thankful which can recharge AND has a decent punch to it)
- Multi-player while having many maps and a few modes are your basic FPS faire, CTF, DM, TDM, AS. It would have been nice to have missions, allow for custom missions and maps, and let you form squads so you can use the squad interface. I found the multi-play to be fast paced and standard, find which gun does the most damage then use it while jumping around stuff you've had since Quake 3. Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six in my opinion are how multiplayer commando games should be done. :)
Nit-pickers corner:
I was very excited about this game. All the trailers and pre-release stuff I saw had these anonymous, cold, professional commandos in plain gray armor. In the game each command has 'customized' his armor with colors. I can see commandos camoflaging their armor based on their mission, but reds and yellows would not be it. I was originally upset at the campy chit-chat the squad has with each other, but I got over it. I would have just preferred to have seen the commandos in non-descript gray armor that looked really nice.
All in all though I enjoyed the game.
From a headline on /. today:
Linux creator Linus Torvalds said this afternoon that he's now running an Apple Macintosh as his main desktop, mainly for work reasons, although partly simply because he's a self-described "technology whore" and got the machine for free.
Category: Action/First Person/Stealth/RPG
Rating: M (very bloody, scary monsters, harsh language)
Synopsis: This game is set in the time period between 'Pitch Black' and 'The Chronicles of Riddick' and the game itself (the part you play) is a flashback of Riddick's to the time period before 'Pitch Black'. The game is meant to fill in more story and myth of the Riddick universe. It fills in a few more gaps about the history of the Furyans and how Riddick fits in as well as provides the story of how his eyes were 'shined'.
Pluses:
- Excellent graphics and the game ran smooth at high settings. Everything had a realistic look and textural feel to it.
- Excellent sound and voice acting. Vin Diesel played Riddick.
- Stealth. I am a big stealth in games fan. Which is why I love the Thief series.
- Neat tricks like drop-killing opponents. You can jump on them from great heights and they die as well as break your fall.
- gritty prison life drama
Minuses:
- Short, I completed the game in about 16 hours of play
- Linear. However, you are not creating a story, merely moving through it. So it is like an interactive movie.
I thoroughly enjoyed the escape of the game and since I did not find all the secrets (packs of cigarettes that unlock extra stuff like TCoR movie trailer and such) and I am playing it a second time.
I also downloaded the Star Wars: Republic Commando demo and liked enough of what I saw to get the game.
