did one of your ancestors invent miller high life? you know i love that stuff…
it's pretty unlikely; the name "miller" only showed up on my dad's side of the family when my great-grandfather emigrated here and changed his name to avoid anti-polish discrimination. i'm guessing miller high life goes back further than that. so unless it was invented in poland or china or japan and randomly named "miller," the odds are slim that any of my ancestors had much to do with it.
then again, i don't know chinese– maybe "miller" translates into "beer that will appeal to an american named brian" in mandarin or something.

how awesome would it be if apple actually started making their macs out of…well…real apples?
i dunno– sounds sticky. and there's a real concern about structural integrity, there. to get any strength, apple would probably have to use a powersauce bar-type compound made of apple cores and chinese newspapers, like on the simpsons. otherwise we'd start seeing imacs that look like those shrunken apple heads we used to make when we were kids. although, the concept of edible computer components has some merit; sometimes i'm hungry but too busy to get up and hit the vending machine, so it'd be nice to munch on, say, the f13 and del keys to tide me over until lunch. maybe the "\" key, too– i almost never use that thing anyway.

how many times, on average, do you go to the bathroom a day?
on average? i really don't know– six? seven? i don't keep track. it varies wildly from day to day, ranging from maybe two to over fifteen.
see, i have this really screwed-up thirst reflex; basically i never get thirsty. when i go out to eat with people, they often look at me funny when i order dinner and nothing to drink. i have to keep reminding myself to drink stuff, because otherwise i can go for days without any serious fluid intake and then i get really dehydrated. it's pretty gross. so in busy or high-stress situations, i tend to forget to drink anything, so my bathroom frequency drops way off… like, when katie and i got back from london last weekend, once we got home i realized i hadn't gone to the bathroom in over nine hours. that's pretty normal if you're asleep, but i had been awake the whole time. so that day was probably a three or a four.
on the other hand, since i never feel thirsty, when i am forcing myself to drink, i don't always know when my body's had enough. that, coupled with other factors like sleeplessness and boredom, can send the bathroom frequency through the roof. metaphorically speaking, of course.
really, the only times i feel thirsty are when i've been eating a massive quantity of salt (it has to be a lot), or when i've been skating for a couple of hours and sweating like a mofo. after i go skating i can usually down half a gallon of gatorade in about three minutes without trying.
that concludes this segment of too much information theater.

if you had a million dollars…how much of that would be spent on (vegan) doughnuts?
what, all at once? these days i pretty much eat at most one vegan doughnut a week– sunday morning, with a hot cup of joe and the funnies. (no, I don't eat the funnies. smartass.) since i probably couldn't eat more than maybe two or three a day and they have a limited shelf life, it'd be a waste to get more than a couple hundred of them.
so if i had a million dollars, i'd probably set up some sort of doughnut trust fund that would pay for my weekly doughnut in accrued interest and release the necessary funds maybe once a month so i could go pick up the goods four at a time. that seems like the most financially prudent strategy.
being a millionaire wouldn't change me– most likely i'd remain a one-vegan-doughnut-a-week man. except i'd probably quit my job, and offer people money to bark like a dog in public. man, that slays me.

tell me about that bagel buzzsaw again, man.
the best chain of bagel shops around these parts is finagle-a-bagel, and they've got
the bagel construction process down to a science. this morning i stopped in to order a classic hummus on a sesame bagel, toasted, with lettuce, tomato, and cucumber to go. tThe counter guy rings it all up, takes my money, and gives me a numbered receipt. he then grabs a sesame bagel with a pair of tongs and tosses it onto a moving conveyer belt.
here's where things get crazy. the belt carries the bagel toward a spinning buzzsaw, which slices the thing in half and sends it flying out the other side into a bin where the sandwich makers are waiting. [footage - quicktime required] they then toast the pre-sliced bagel, assemble the sandwich, bag it up, and call my number. the whole shebang is a modern marvel of efficiency, but that buzzsaw– that's the coolest thing on the planet.
of course, i used to work in a bagel shop myself, and back in my day, we didn't have new-fangled mass-production devices to facilitate the bagel assembly process. i, in fact, am trained in the delicate art of slicing a bagel perfectly in half using nothing but my hands and a big knife– without drawing any blood or losing a finger. with the advent of those wooden bagel-holding-slicer things (and now the buzzsaw), it's almost a lost art… sort of like long division. someday i hope to pass this ancient bagel-slicing lore onto my children.

if you could switch places with any popular actress for a day, who would it be and what would you do?
"popular actress"? i hope you don't mean "actress on 'popular,'" 'cause i don't watch that show. and am i just trading places with her, like when fred stayed home with pebbles and wilma went off to work for mr. slate, or are we actually swapping minds like in freaky friday? the details are important, here.
your mind would be inhabiting her body. you would literally be her for the day.
i'm going to pretend i'm not married for a second here and say i'd become alyson hannigan (you know, Willow from "buffy," michelle the band camp girl from american pie, etc.). i'd spend the day dumping that guy who plays wesley on "angel" and then feverishly planting subliminal messages in all her (my?) stuff to call that jack guy in boston because he seems like a pretty cool fella. then i'd switch back to me and wait for the phone to ring. foolproof, i tell you.

if it's just a "let's trade places for a day" gig, well, maybe i'd trade with Sarah Michelle Gellar so at least I could spend a day on the "buffy" set making goo-goo eyes at alyson between takes. no, wait– better yet, i'd trade with the actress who plays tara, willow's lesbian lover, because then maybe i'd get to smooch her, too. while we're dreaming, i'd also like a pony.

what are three things about married life that we should all know before we enter into that unholy pact?
well, i've only got two and a half weeks' worth of experience upon which to draw, here, but here goes:

1) it's surprisingly difficult to get used to using the phrase "my wife" instead of "my girlfriend" or "my fiance." It just feels wrong.
try it. weird, isn't it?

2) it's no panacea for the constant hassle of being asked "when are you two getting married?" because it just turns into "when are you two having kids?"

3) it's not an institution to be entered into lightly, so regardless of any possible moral objections to "living in sin," i recommend that people live together for a while first just to make absolutely sure that they're compatible and that they can live with each other's idiosyncrasies. eleven years worked for us. your mileage may vary.

[jack does a (week)daily apple news soap opera called as the apple turns, which actually has a warning about spewing chocolate milk onto your monitor. he's rarely seen by the public, so he provided this mugshot for visual aid. jack spends just about as much time in front of a computer on a daily basis as i do. this is neither an criticism or a compliment.]

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A Sideways Look at Time by Jay Griffiths

My review
rating: 1 of 5 stars
It's not often that I will actually STOP reading a book, on purpose, once I've started. Sure, sometimes I'll put it down for a while and come back to it later, but like leaving in the middle of a movie, putting down a book—for good—without finishing it is something I just don't do.

Well, now I have.

The premise of this book intrigued me, with its vague intimations of a philosophic and Zen inspired discourse on time—how we perceive it, and how we might get back to a better relationship with it. Presumably, that discourse exists somewhere within the book, but I wasn't able to slog through the first few chapters to get to the meat of it.

The author is apparently of an American school of writing influenced heavily by the Beats. His prose attempts that Kerouackian stream-of-consciousness that Jack managed to pull off with energy and weight, but which this author only stumbles around with, coming off as amatuerish and disjointed. The book feels like a first draft, with the author repeating the same ideas several times in the course of several paragraphs, and revisiting them again later in the same chapter. By the third reading of the same statement, the reader is left saying "OK! I get it! Can we move on!"

Coupled with repeated assertions, the author employs broad, seemingly faulty interpretations of events or social phenomena to support his ideas. The first few times these weak arguments show up, the reader may be willing to overlook or forgive. But with each additional instance, the reader's patience is tried and the author begins to seem like a buffoon.

Ultimately, as I said, I only made it through the first few chapters before I had had enough of the faux-progressive prose and faulty logic. The book comes across as something that might have been an interesting idea for a 10-20 page essay, which has been expanded—to its great detriment—into a full-length book.

For the premise alone, I wish I could recommend the book… but I can't. Don't buy it, spend your precious time on something worthwhile.

View all my GoodReads reviews.

Popularity: 7% [?]

I loved the new Star Trek. Let's just get that out of the way at the beginning, then continue.

I am a huge Trek fan, from way back (not WAY way back, like the 60's way back, but way back, like from the 80's). I used to watch Original Series reruns on TV as a kid (in the 70's), I went to see the first Star Trek movie in the theater (not that I really remember it, but my parents have reminded me), then stopped watching Star Trek altogether when Wrath of Khan came out because the little brain-worm-things scared the shit out of me. I got back into it when Next Gen started, and just went nuts over it. You ask me how dilithium crystals work in a warp drive, and I can probably give you an explanation without doing any research.

There are tons of reasons why I enjoyed the original series (and Next Gen, and DS9, and occasionally Enterprise), and I'd love to tell you that it was because of the hopeful and optimistic vision of the future, and the way it portrayed humanity as having overcome greed and prejudice and having dedicated themselves as a race to bettering themselves and fighting the just and righteous fight for freedom and cooperation. But really, I loved it because of the characters. The sometimes quirky, sometimes absurd, sometimes hyper-real, sometimes bizarrely unrealistic characters and relationships that populated the show. I loved it because of the stories, and the campy humor, and the glorious over-acting. And, I loved it because it sometimes asked deep philosophical questions, and other times it paraded around in front of you wearing a Nazi uniform. I don't think I really grasped the historical, philosophical, and sociological ramifications of the Trek universe until later.

But, we're here to talk about the new Star Trek movie, aren't we?

Taken on its own merits, I think this is a phenomenal movie. There are issues of science and issues of execution of course, but overall it is exciting, and fun, and touching, and very Star Trek in lots of the right ways.

I think Chris Pine made a great Kirk. All the characters were written (and directed, I assume) somewhat… over-the-top, and very earnest. I felt that, though Pine also suffered this, he had a presence and subtlety that really befitted the character, and that I can see serving him very well in subsequent outings. There was at least one scene (and I've been trying to remember exactly where it occurred, but nevertheless) where I remember thinking to myself… "There's Kirk. That's Kirk. That was right on." And I think it was just a single word, or very short line, delivered with a certain mixture of joy and self-awareness that I think captured the spirit of "The Kirk," and channeled a bit of the old Shatner magic. Suffice it to say, I enjoyed this new Kirk.

There were certain Kirk moments from a story/plot perspective and from a characterization perspective that I didn't like, but those would be difficult to elucidate without spoilage.

Quinto's Spock also had a lot to offer. Maybe he played it a little too close to the chest at times, and maybe he played it a little too "smirky" at times, but neither of those are entirely un-Spock-like qualities. I thought the father/son and the mother/son things were well written and well played, but I did feel that this Spock, somewhat interestingly, was representative of the Spock we came to understand over the last ~40 years, rather than the Spock we met in the first Original Series episode. Our Spock started out (well, after Where No Man Has Gone Before, anyway) as an emotionless, purely logical, and imperceptibly conflicted character who had very much chosen his Vulcan side over his Human one. That was not the Spock we got in this movie. In and of itself, that's not a bad thing, and I did really enjoy this Spock, but I also felt that this new Spock didn't represent where our Spock would have been at this point in his life. It didn't kill my enjoyment of the character, but it stood out to me as a point of unnecessary disunity.

Ultimately though, I thought Quinto's Spock was fantastic. He enabled you to become invested in the character very quickly, and he brought you along for the… yes, emotional ride through the rest of the movie.

The supporting cast was also varying degrees of good.

Karl Urban's doctor was good, but I felt that he was trying too hard to imitate the wonderful DeForest Kelley. I also felt that the writers did him a disservice by restricting his dialogue almost exclusively (I felt) to classic "Bones" catch-phrases. Dixon over at Shelfbound considered that this may simply be the way McCoy talks, which is an interesting thought, but one I don't necessarily agree with. McCoy (the "real" McCoy, you might say buh-doom-tsh!) had plenty of aphorisms and metaphors to go around, but his dialogue was never so heavy with catch-phrases. Ultimately, it's forgivable, but it was irksome.

As an aside, I absolutely adored the way they introduced McCoy's nickname. It was a bit awkward, perhaps, but I loved it.

Simon Pegg as Scotty was a real treat. The character was fun, and lively, and seemed to come off as both brilliant and moronic at the same time. I like Pegg, he's fun. Unfortunately, I never believed he was Scotty. Doohan's Scotty was brilliant but subdued, earthy but not offensive, and excitable but responsible. Pegg's Scotty was mystified, frenetic, and frequently out-of-his-depth. Also unfortunately, Scotty didn't get enough good screen-time to further establish the character. Perhaps there's more to him than this situation allowed to come through.

Uhura was good. Her character had strength, conviction, self-confidence, and power. It is a testament to the actress (and the writers as well) that they were able to establish this, because she was woefully lacking many really meaty scenes.

Sulu was also good, and I felt he fared a bit better than Uhura, scene-wise. He didn't try (unlike Urban) to mimic his predecessor, but inhabited the character he was given. I don't think that I ever really felt he was Sulu, but rather that he was some entirely separate character.

The Christopher Pike character was really great. I felt he got shortchanged in the leadership department in a few spots, but that ties into some movie-wide problems and more potential spoilage. Still, I really liked this character.

Finally, we get to Checkov. What to say… I did really enjoy his introductory moments in the movie, but ultimately I found his character to be very annoying. I also felt that this character was the farthest from the original source material. I won't go so far as to say I didn't like the new Checkov—because he was entertaining, to a point—but he's just not Checkov. However, maybe he is just another casualty of the way the characters were generally over-played. If he'd been more subdued, perhaps he would have fit perfectly. Who knows?

Well, I said "finally, we get to Checkov," but really, the Enterprise is the last (or first?) major character in the Original Series, and we should talk about her as well.

I really liked the new Starfleet ship exteriors, and felt they were true enough to the original. The bridge, on the other hand, was a different story. The old bridge was spacious, and austere but powerful, and it felt comfortable and open. This new bridge was bright, flashy, and claustrophobic. So much of the old Star Trek took place on the bridge—perhaps this is an indicator that the bridge will no longer be the central story-telling vantage point. It will be interesting to see how it plays out in future movies.

At last, we get to the story itself. As I mentioned, it was enjoyable and exciting. Unfortunately, I felt it was also, like most of the rest of the movie, a bit over-blown. It was as if they tried to make every single moment just as tense and dramatic as possible—tried to give the story as much weight as it could possibly carry. The good thing is that it delivered. The question is, is that a good thing? Personally, I prefer my Star Trek a little more cerebral, and a little less "wagon train." Maybe that's the Next Gen era initiate in me, I dunno. I just think there's a line between sci-fi action/thriller and sci-fi action/drama that this movie played too often on the wrong side of.

At this point, I'm not sure how much more i can say without really getting into specifics of plot. I definitely have more thoughts on specific aspects of the movie, and also generally about what it means that we now have this New old generation of characters.

As I've mentioned in other venues, to other people, I loved it, but I also hated it.

Popularity: 10% [?]

A couple buddies of mine recently launched their awesome new website—Shelfbound—where they're currently talking mostly about comics (but eventually about books, music, and movies as well, I believe). On Friday of their first week, they posted a discussion about their personal histories relating to comics, which I felt compelled to comment on.

That post, coupled with the call I received from the comic shop I (used to) frequent—asking if I was actually going to come pick up my (7 months worth of) holds, or if he should put them back and delete my holds list— got me started thinking about my own comics history, such as it is.

At some point in the not too distant past, I was an absolute nut with an active holds list of more than 20 titles, and an average of over 33 books purchased per month. I thought it might be entertaining to air out the dirty laundry of my former addiction, by way of some lists comparing then versus now.

Going through my collection (at least, those books that actually made it up to comicbookdb.com before I stopped entering them), I came up with the following list of titles that, at one time or another, was a regular purchase. Mind you, these were not ALL on my list at the same time, but a LOT of them were.

The "long-time" list consists of books that I purchased (usually consecutively) for more than a year.
The "short-time" list consists of long-running titles that I picked up and dropped, or bought off-and-on, or which were longer-running mini-series.

And finally, after a few years of increasingly sporadic trips to the comic shop, and the cancellation (Spider-Girl) or ruination (Spider-Man) of some favorite titles, I've whittled down my holds list to the following:

Current holds list
Batman
Daredevil
Detective Comics
Powers
Superman/Batman
Ultimate Spider-Man

So, from 30+ titles every month I'm down to 6 (well, five plus Powers, which is apparently not even close to monthly anymore). Depending on the quality of the last 7 months, I may yet drop Superman/Batman, and I was considering dropping Daredevil (though the guy in the store said it'd been pretty good of late, so i dunno… i may just selectively pick up arcs, if they look good).

Of course, I just saw on Diamond's site that Dynamite Ent. is coming out with a new Buck Rogers comic, which I have to at least get the first issue of; and the guy at the store told me there's a rumor my girl (Spider-Girl, that is) may be re-launched. So, I may be back up to 8 titles in the near future… but for now, at least, it's a little more reasonable.

Popularity: 11% [?]

* "Crisis" is definitely overstating it a bit, but nevertheless…

Earlier tonight, I told an old friend that "I couldn't be happier with where my life has led," and, of course, that is true. What i've been struggling with the last few years has been the "where."

In high school, i wanted nothing more than to start my own business, be my own boss, stay in the hick town where I grew up and be a "computer consultant" (whatever the hell that means.) I knew that I would a) be awesome at it, and b) be totally happy with my life. Instead—when i realized my father's brain would melt and my mother's heart would flop right out of her chest if I didn't—i went to college.

In college, i met some awesome creative people, broke out of my mold, and made sweeping plans for taking over the world with the most profound art, music, and literature the world had ever seen, together with this band of misfit geniuses in whom I'd found a family.

Then the 'net happened and I found another niche. I was going to carry this empire of sight, sound, and word into the year 2000, and become the best damned webmaster this side of the Mississippi. I was going to shift paradigms, set trends, and lead the denizens of the 'net to the next level. Not that I could see what that next level was yet, but that was my plan.

Luckily, I landed a job that let me do the only thing that I'd really want to sit still long enough to get paid for. Unfortunately, i discovered that it wasn't always possible to innovate on a deadline, for the kind of clients a high priced web firm dealt with. That, and I didn't have the base skills to really push the envelope. I was, after all, entirely self-taught.

As technology progressed, I collected plans and hoarded them for "when I had time." My work, psycho ex-girlfriends, the internet, and my plans themselves sapped my energy to the point where little got done. Occasionally, I'd have a burst of activity, and accomplish something neat, or push a pet project a little farther up the hill. Then I'd go back to the news feeds, or the game of Dune, or whatever.

I was going to be a first-rate poet, the next Kerouac, a top notch photographer, a musician, a publisher, a record producer, a freelance web guru, a gallery owner, a coffee shop owner… the list goes on.

It's taken me a few years, but slowly, I've realized that I can't do it all. And those grandiose plans I made years ago—the empire I built on dreams—depended on that family of friends as a static, unchanging unit with infinite reserves of energy and patience. To meet my dreams, my friends would have had to stay just as they were.

What I've come to realize is not that I can't count on my friends (because I know they'll support me in whatever I choose to do), but just that my friends have their own lives, and plans, and dreams. I can't package them up into mine, any more than they can package me up into theirs.

So I have been converging on this point, where I have to figure out two things: what I want to do, and what I can do. With all these grandiose plans I've made, which are the feasible, workable notions, and which are the pipe dreams?

These were the thoughts that, late last year, and early this year, brought me to re-dedicate myself to my writing. I still have lots of plans, little things I'd like to do, but, when push comes to shove, my writing comes first. Someday, perhaps I'll be able to expand my arena again, but right now, I have to seize my opportunities and focus on a smaller set of goals.

To a certain extent, the old Coffeemonk Design Flaws empire is seeing a sunset. The name "Coffeemonk Design Flaws" was always Bob's thing anyway, and without his participation, it has long felt hollow.

I'm still working out the details in my head, but very likely, coffeemonk.com will become my writing oriented blog, and Savant-Garde Press will finally emerge from it's long stasis to stand on it's own. I'm also planning to launch a personal blog at matt.rasnake.info (eventually), and will continue to maintain bipolar as well.

This, then, is not as much an identity crisis, as it is an identity acknowledgement. This is the happiness to which my life has led me…

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another flash fiction story, this time a straight fiction piece. hope you enjoy.

He and Sam had lived in this house for almost 30 years—bought it when their youngest was six, and their oldest was graduating high school. They'd had lots of great times in this house, him and Sam, their three kids, their various pets and pet projects. No doubt about it, this house was well loved.

Maybe I'm not the best handyman around, Troy thought, I never quite got those shingles repaired properly, and the downspouts were always loose. But I've taken care of her, I suppose.

"Help." he said, meekly.

Yeah, it was a good house. And it's a great little neighborhood, for sure, despite those noisy planes. It just meant that they were able to get a bigger house, to fit the family a little better, and not get in over their heads with the mortgage. There was the great big backyard that the kids loved to play in. He'd built them a sandbox, a swing set, a tree house—and not from a kit either. He'd drawn up the plans, bought the lumber, cut it, drilled it, assembled it, dug it in, and made sure it was sturdy. All those things were still back there, still being used by the grandkids. Still standing, still safe.

At least… I think… are they still back there? he wondered. What was I…

"Can anybody hear…" his throat felt dry. He was a little thirsty.

Some of his buddies back at the office had tried to talk him out of it, of course. Tried to tell him he wouldn't like living that close to the airport, even if it was just a little one with only a single runway. He had assured them that it would be alright, he had it on good authority (the previous owners, and his real-estate agent) that after a while, it would hardly be noticeable. The noise would just blend into the background. Maybe that was never quite true, but it had certainly been livable. There were pretty much no flights after 9pm, and none before 6am, and that suited him pretty well. The kids hardly ever complained, and Sam never said a peep… at least, not to him. She was quite a woman, Sam. When they first moved in, the kids would play in the backyard, and she'd sit on the deck watching. She looked like a queen. A radiant vision with shoulder-length hair as black as night. It was his favorite memory of her.

Where is Sam? She should be home soon, shouldn't she? he panicked for a moment. I hope she doesn't…

"help." his voice was thin, faint.

He had actually gotten to the point where he could identify the planes flying overhead by the sound. Eventually, he'd even taken some flying lessons and gotten to know some of the private pilots there. In fact, he was pretty sure that was Chuck Kleiser he'd heard approaching the house a few minutes ago. If he was out in the backyard, he could hear the prop and engine noise, figure out exactly which plane it was, then look overhead as it passed just to confirm it. There goes that Cessna, that Piper, that Beech, that other Cessna. It was mostly the same planes, though occasionally a new one would come in, an out-of-towner here on business, or some rich youngster with his new Socata 850 or Piper Meridian. Tony didn't much care either way, but he got a kick out of the old-timers griping about the new guys with barely concealed contempt and carefully subdued envy.

Did I hear Chuck's plane? Tony struggled to remember. His engine didn't sound well.

"sam."

Of course, now some of his friends were pilots, and the planes flying overhead every day meant that those TV and newspaper reports about planes crashing, running out of fuel, not making it off the runway, bursting into flames… all those things had started to hit home—become personal. He saw a report like that and immediately wondered where Frank was tonight, or Jody. He'd look out the front window just to make sure there wasn't some giant pillar of smoke rising over the neighborhood from the direction of the runway. He'd see on TV some demolished house with a demolished plane sitting in the living room, and he'd wonder about the occupants. What were they thinking when that American Champion landed on their couch?

Need to close a window, it's too cool in here. Tony enjoyed the light shining into the house, but felt… Is that… blood?

"samantha." Tony whispered his wife's name.

He'd been doing something… what was it. He'd gotten up to… he'd gotten up to fix himself a sandwich.

But I'm not hungry. he thought.

He'd gotten up from the couch to fix himself a sandwich. That was when he'd heard Chuck's plane coming up over the neighborhood. Chuck's plane coming up, but not sounding quite right. Sounding unsteady. Then, yes, then as he was listening, hearing Chuck's plane coming up, then hearing nothing. Hearing nothing, and then… then everything. So much noise. Noise and light and dust and dark. He'd opened his eyes, and the dust had settled. That seemed strange, that the dust should settle that fast. Then there was all this blood, that certainly didn't seem right. And there, there was the nose of Chuck's plane, in his living room, crushing his couch like it was waiting for football season. He thought he saw Chuck, in his plane, but that wasn't Chuck, not really.

He looked out, where his front window had been, and he saw… he saw the huge pillar of smoke rising over the neighborhood, rising up out of his living room. He couldn't lift his head anymore, but he could see blood on his hands. He thought about his kids and how much fun they'd had in this house. He thought about Samantha on the deck, her long hair, black as night, blowing ever so slightly in the breeze. She should be home soon, but he hoped she wouldn't… wouldn't find him like this.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Considering my recently renewed drive to become a productive writer, I decided, tonight, to write this piece of flash fiction—a super-short sub-1000 word complete story. It may not be terribly original, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. Also, i'm pleased I was able to knock out almost 1000 words in one two-hour stretch. Much better than the almost 1000 words I managed over the whole of the past weekend. Lastly, as you may guess from the above, this is probably roughly first-draft quality. I had the idea last night, wrote it between 10-ish pm and 12-ish am tonight, then did a 5 minute read-through and polish pass, and posted it here. I hope you enjoy it.

delivering resistance

My Pop–that's what I call my grandpa–was a mailman. Oh, he'd retired years before I was even born, but from the time I was able to sit up on my own, I'd sit at his feet and listen to him tell stories. It didn't matter what he was saying, of course, I just loved to hear him talk. As I got older, I kept asking him to tell me the same stories. I kept sitting, and he kept talking. It was always summer when we'd visit Pop, and i remember the warm tingly sun on my back as I'd sit there and listen, or lay there, playing with my toys.

About 10 years ago is when it started. I was 14, sitting at Pop's knee, listening to his stories, and Mom came in crying. She could hardly get words out.

"It's just awful!" She'd said, a look on her face like nothing I'd ever seen, like she was stuck, like she was trying to pop her ears at the top of a mountain. That was the day our government had declared martial law in the name of a foreign power. Just like that. No warning. Entire metropolitan police forces either complied and joined up, or were massacred on the spot. 15,000 officers died within 30 minutes on the eastern seaboard alone. Of course there was chaos, but the military and ex-cops detained or executed looters, protesters, and demonstrators by the hundreds, until no one who resisted was left. Or at least, no one who resisted openly.

I think that day was the last time I felt the sun.

My dad was a scientist, apparently a somewhat important one, not that I ever paid much attention. He was hardly around, and when he was, he always had his books or his papers, and a concerned look on his face. But on that day, he yanked me up from Pop's floor, and shuffled me, Mom, Pop, and my sis into our little 4-door, and drove way out in the middle of nowhere to some kind of run-down hunting cabin. There were some men inside, and they took us to a tiny little cave, which led to a series of caves, which lead to a great big cave filled to the stalactites with whirring machines blinking and steaming in the tepid air.

That night was the first night of the resistance, though plans had been in place for decades (scientists love to anticipate problems), and for the next five or six years, we lived right there in that cave. I'm not sure where the food came from, or how any of the rest of that place worked, all I know is that I hated it. Maybe that's a little too strong. I certainly liked the IDEA of living in a cave, and I loved being able to go exploring–especially once i got to go alone–but the only books we had were science books, and the only computers we had were dedicated to their specific tasks. The moms tried to setup a classroom, but we could pretty much only study math, science, and stuff they remembered or made up. There were no video games, very little music except what we could make, and not really even any girls. Well, there were three who were infants when they got there, and two who were a bit older than me, but one died of pneumonia our second year, and the other was just too annoying to be near for long. So there we were with nothing to do but schoolwork and make-believe. But Pop was there, so when he wasn't trying to make himself useful as a guinea pig or a button pusher for the scientists, he'd sit and tell me all those old stories over and over again. Sometimes, he'd make up new ones, just to keep it interesting, but I could always tell.

One day, we got word from the resistance, nothing special really, but it was one of those days I was making an effort to show interest in my dad's work, so I asked how exactly we were getting messages back and forth between groups of people who were trying as hard as we were to stay hidden.

That was when he told me about the mailmen.

I was astonished. Pop's mailmen had been gone since before i was born, a casualty of the new global economy, the internet, and the fact that, in the end, the only things being mailed were things that nobody wanted. There were still a couple major consumer-oriented package shippers, but the day of the mailman was long over. Nobody had paid to deliver something as simple as a paper-stuffed envelope in 20 years! But dad assured me that encrypted messages were being carried back and forth from enclave to enclave every night. There was a clandestine resistance postal service.

Pop's been gone now for 4 years, and the cave was apparently raided a couple years ago leaving no survivors. But since that night when I learned of the mailmen, i have been training and moving, carrying the messages of hope and news of the resistance. I know that my Pop was proud of me, 'cause he told me as much in the last letter he would ever write. And when I set out each night, to my next destination, his stories echo in my head, and I know that I will have the strength to go on, no matter the circumstance or weather–as Pop said "in snow, in rain, in heat, or gloom of night"–but never in sunlight. No, I suppose I won't ever feel that warmth again.

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A friend just emailed me, asking for advice on places to visit in Paris. Since I love Paris so much, i might have gone overboard. I've probably mentioned most of these things in my journals from those trips, but nevertheless, I thought I might post it here, y'know since it's already written and everything…

As for Paris, the key is walking. If she's into the touristy stuff, the Arc de Triomphe is excellent to see, walking down the Champs Elysees is a must, and viewing the Eiffel Tower from La Trocadero is highly recommended. If she doesn't mind crowds and long waits in line, going up IN the Eiffel Tower is enjoyable, but I'm still not sure I'd call it worth it on a really busy day.

The Louvre is fantastic and huge if she's an art buff, but unless she's just a huge Picasso fan, I'd skip the Picasso museum (which is separate and in a different part of town). Connected to the Louvre is my favorite of the Paris gardens, the Jardin de Touillerie, which, if you stand at the far end of the courtyard of the Louvre, looking down the path out into the garden, and through the small arc in the courtyard, you can see *all the way* out the garden to the Obelisque, and up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. That is one of my favorite views of Paris. My favorite view is at the other end of the garden, in the grassy space up above the gates, looking out into the courtyard with the Obelisque and the fountain(s?). From here, you get a great view of the Eiffel Tower to the left across the Seine, and of the Obelisque and Arc de Triomphe up the Champs Elysees to the right. My favorite spot in all of Paris is that spot, if you go up the ramp (the left ramp if you're walking towards the gates at the end of the garden) you get that great view I mentioned.

My second favorite view of Paris is from Sacre Coure in Montmartre. It feels like you can see the whole city from there. (Sort of like Eiffel, but without the long wait or crushing crowds.) Also in Montmartre, a few blocks from Sacre Coure, is a square where hundreds of artists have booths setup and are working and selling things. around the square are several restaurants, so that's a great place to go after visiting Sacre Coure.

As I mentioned, just walking around is great, especially if you have a companion or two, head down some side-streets and see what you find. My last and most important bit of advice is this: learn enough french to ask simple questions. The most important thing is to be polite and respectful. You walk into a shop, you say "bonjour!" (or something more appropriate, depending on the time of day), when you leave the shop, you say "merci!" If you have to speak to a shopkeeper and don't have enough french for it, the most important phrase in your arsenal is "I cannot speak French, do you speak English?" (in French obviously). *Usually,* making that much effort is enough that they'll be polite to you as well. If they don't, they'll tell you, and you can say "merci" and either gesture enough to get your point across, or politely leave the shop.

Finally, and especially if doing a lot of walking, the picture I attached is of the book my sister relied on during her five+ years there. Any Plan de Paris should work, I imagine, and there seem to be a few pocket-sized versions around, but this one worked very well for me.

That's not an exhaustive list, for sure, but some of the things I particularly enjoyed. Also, i recommend sitting at the outside tables at a crowded cafe, sipping an espresso, and just people-watching. But that may be just me.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Codified by my buddy ben:

three rules of bourbon:

1. bourbon is only served in a glass. a glass glass.
2. only two things are mixed with bourbon, and both of them are water
3. bourbon only goes in your mouth.

Inspired by the horrifying "How to Irrigate Your Nasal Passages."

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Aside from my preternatural skills of procrastination, one of my biggest obstacles to writing is focus. Sometimes, you run across a piece of advice that speaks directly to you, and this is one of those times.

Don't research
Researching isn't writing and vice-versa. When you come to a factual matter that you could google in a matter of seconds, don't. Don't give in and look up the length of the Brooklyn Bridge, the population of Rhode Island, or the distance to the Sun. That way lies distraction — an endless click-trance that will turn your 20 minutes of composing into a half-day's idyll through the web. Instead, do what journalists do: type "TK" where your fact should go, as in "The Brooklyn bridge, all TK feet of it, sailed into the air like a kite." "TK" appears in very few English words (the one I get tripped up on is "Atkins") so a quick search through your document for "TK" will tell you whether you have any fact-checking to do afterwards. And your editor and copyeditor will recognize it if you miss it and bring it to your attention.

from a post by Cory Doctorow

I've not done much actual writing (mostly outlining and, more often, NOT outlining—see procrastination, above) but when I was attempting to write that sci-fi novel I started in 2005, I was horribly horribly derailed by researching the position of mars in the night sky, from the mountains of northern california. In my defense, it gave me dialogue i might not have otherwise had, but still… distracted! The above is great advice for countering this, which I hope I can actually put into practice.

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Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954 by Jack Kerouac

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
It was always somewhat unclear, in the works dealing with Kerouac's life and methods, just how much he was beholden to classic literature and literary theory. The most famous story, of course, was always about the benzedrine, caffeine, and nicotine fueled three-day writing binge that resulted in "On The Road." And Kerouac himself, with his later works, and his articles and essays about writing, became a vocal proponent of "automatic" or "stream of consciousness" writing, further muddying the waters of his influences. In reading many of the biographies about Kerouac, we can get something of a feel for his abiding love of literature, and his almost reverent regard for certain writers who most inspired him.

In this book, a collection of journals–in whole and in part–taking the form of a mixture of working writing journals, and personal diary-type entries, his interests and desires are made clear.

Especially in regards to his first novel, Kerouac is keenly interested in creating a work of import and gravity, to be held among the works of his admired influences. He discusses the great efforts to maintain his momentum, and to edit and re-arrange his work. His fluctuating emotional connection to his own work sees him moving from the depths of despair that he will never be able to finish to his satisfaction, to the height of narcissistic belief that it will be a greater work than anything else in his time. This journal enlightens us to his struggles just to *be* a writer–which is a far cry from that image of Kerouac as the mindless typist cranking out words in a drug-fueled haze.

Later entries shine a light on his most famous novel "On The Road" that it rarely receives–showing "On The Road" as a careful work, which goes through several conceptual changes, not to mention numerous drafts.

Much of these journals are also notes from the journeys that actually appear in the finished novel, so we are able to see, in a way, how Kerouac captures his raw material.

These journals are a fantastic opportunity for Kerouac fans to get an internal glipmse at the reality behind the fiction we've come to love. For those who aren't fans, but who are interested in the act and art of writing–and of *creating*, in general–it is a window on the extraordinary struggles of a man attempting to leave his mark.

View all my reviews.

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