The Language Barrier

Don't mind me, I'm just: tired
Hey, that sounds like: Monster Magnet -- Crop Circle

• Busy weekend coming up: tonight is Bo-topia (a.k.a. wurdsome's birthday party) which I'm leaving for straight from work, then tomorrow evening I'm off to see Testament (and several other metal bands I've never heard of) as part of Powerfest 2008 in scenic Mokena, IL. And Sunday I'll spend doing the chores I should do Saturday, but won't because I have the excuse of the concert.



• My BushBucks have arrived! And it looks like I'll be stimulating the economy more than I thought. I decided to spend some of it on new books and somehow that turned into a $100 orgy of expenditure last night at SFBC.com -- they were having a sale, $9.99 per book after you buy two at regular price. I'm getting A Canticle For Leibowitz (which, inexcusably, I haven't read yet), World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, and the first six (!) books in Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series, which is projected to run to ten.



• And while I was being frivolous, I also spent another hundred bucks for a ticket to the Metal Masters Tour in August. Actually, make that $45 for the ticket, $30 for parking, and $25 in various fees and fuck-you charges. The headliners are Judas Priest and Heaven and Hell (which is basically Dio-era Black Sabbath, minus Bill Ward, plus Vinnie Appice) and the opening acts are Motörhead and Testament (again!) In a way this show will be me coming full circle in my concert-going history: the first concert I ever attended was a Judas Priest / Megadeth / Testament show at Rosemont Horizon in 1990. But to be totally honest, the thing that clinched it for me is "how many chances am I going to get to see Motörhead?"



• For those of you who are going to the Cubs game on 5/17 -- and neonhummingbird, I'm still counting you as a "yes" because stankow has volunteered to cover some of your ticket, so please let me know if you weren't aware of that and have made other plans -- and have been wondering how to reimburse me, I haven't been able to think of an easier means than PayPal to take care of that, unless you want to bring a personal check with you.
  
  Accordingly, my PayPal account is under exaustinite(at)hotmail.com, and the ticket price is $52.00, so whenever you're ready, willing, and fully-funded, let 'er rip. I'm covering all the taxes and fees and whatnot, to apologize for the crappiness and priciness of the seats, so don't worry about that. If you would prefer to send a personal check or something through snail mail, send an email to that address instead and I'll give you my meatspace coordinates. :)
  
  (Oh, and there's still one ticket left, by the by...)



• What else? Ah, yes. Those of you who were privy to my red light violation post back in March may be interested to know that I did go ahead and contest it by mail after all, but I ended up having to pay it anyway, as many including myself suspected I would.
  
  On the other hand, I also got a notice from the IL Tollway Authority a few days afterward, demanding $220.00 in unpaid tolls and fees, which I managed to deal with over the phone without having to pay a single cent for. Turns out the expiration date had run out on the credit card I had tied to my I-Pass account, and I didn't realize this for about a week. When I updated it, the account still showed a small balance, so I figured I'd gotten lucky, but alas this was not the case. The gentleman I spoke to on the phone was very helpful and waived all the fees -- as well as the unpaid toll charges, which turned out to have been paid automatically as soon as I corrected my info on the I-Pass Account. So thanks for the pointless scary mail, IL Tollway Authority.

Scanty; meager; small; slender.

A walled ditch or sunken obstacle, such as a hedge, serving especially as a barrier to livestock without impairing the view or scenic appeal. See also sunk fence.

It contained the hoho, which is like a haha only deeper. A haha is a concealed ditch and wall designed to allow landowners to look out across rolling vistas without getting cattle and inconvenient poor people wandering across the lawn. Under Bloody Stupid's errant pencil it was dug fifty feet deep and had claimed three gardeners already.

• I haven't been in a very good mood lately, despite lots of short weeks and holiday festivities. Ennui and self-disgust are the order of the day; and I notice that when I can be persuaded to feel something else, four times out of five it's spite or schadenfreude. For example, I'm rooting for particular outcomes not so much because they will please me, but because they will disappoint people who are less bitter and jaded than I am. Not sure what to do about that other than wait it out.



• For the first time since I started playing in 2003, I won a fantasy football championship. The Headbangers triumphed over wurdsome's GreatLionSnake 68-31.



• Continuing with sports, Da Bears disappointed me sorely this year. Actually the NFL in general irked me this year, leaving me with little to root for in the coming weeks but the eventual defeat of the New England Patriots (see first item). The two NFC teams who are most likely to be in the Super Bowl are the Packers and the Cowboys, and I can't abide either team. But I suppose if it's gotta be somebody, let it be the Pack -- maybe another ring will convince Brett Favre to retire at long last.



• Last weekend featured some serious cleaning in my house for the first time in a very long time -- manda_x's recent visit was the catalyst -- and I think I'm about 3/4 of the way to where I need to be to establish a "baseline" level of cleanliness. Next step: start pricing maid service for 1-2 visits a month. It's time to admit to myself that I'm not capable of caring enough to keep my floors/bathroom clean through my own effort.



• Lately the after-work routine has been limited to (1) watching Farscape reruns on VHS, (2) watching Justice League reruns on DVD, (3) playing Civilization III, (4) playing Champions of Norrath on my PS2, and/or (5) reading. On the weekends, I do the same stuff, only twice as much of it and with a nap halfway through.



• Got a bunch of books for Christmas (some were gifts to myself), including Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!) which is just delightful. If you're a fan of the show, I predict you will really love the book. It bears a strong resemblance to America (The Book) by the writers of the Daily Show, so if you're not a particular fan of Colbert but liked that book, I'd still recommend it.



• All three kitties are healthy and happy; Oreo in particular has been pleased with the fact that the aforementioned Colbert book comes with one of those ribbon bookmarks (the kind you find in Bibles) so it's a book we can both enjoy at the same time.



• I'm thinking about taking another trip to Austin in late February or early March.



• Losing weight is really hard. Harder yet when you got a DualDaddy for Christmas and are still awash in calorically generous gift-basket crap. I guess we'll see what happens.

Lacking in vitality or intelligence; stupid, dull, or clumsy.

zephre

1. Of or pertaining to alms, charity, or charitable donations; charitable.


2. Dependent on or supported by charity.

byrneout

dogofthefuture

A peddler, esp. of inferior articles.

1. Of or suitable for a cheap-jack; cheap or inferior.


2. Without scruples or principles; underhanded.

manda_x

Slang. Speech or writing designed to obscure, mislead, or impress; bunkum.

The eminent British etymologist Eric Partridge suspected that it might be based on the modern Greek word "malakia," but no one else seems to agree with his theory. Mr. Partridge's editor and successor, Paul Beale, makes note of a Cockney slang term, "Madam Misharty," which means roughly the same thing as "malarkey" and may be based on a real person, in this case thought to be a fortune-teller.

1. Heraldry. A shield or shield-shaped emblem bearing a coat of arms.


2. An ornamental or protective plate, as for a keyhole.


3. Nautical. The plate on the stern of a ship inscribed with the ship's name.

I am seldom bothered by minor errors from a good writer, but Roberts' mistakes are so extensive, foolish, and revealing of his basic ignorance about the United States in particular, that it may be worth noting a few of those I caught in a fast read. The San Francisco earthquake did considerably more than $400,000 in damage. Virginia Woolf, who drowned herself in 1941, did not write for Encounter, which began publication in 1953. The Proposition 13 Tax Revolt took place in the 1970s, not the 1980s—an important distinction because it presaged Ronald Reagan's election in 1980. Michael Milken was not a "takeover arbitrageur," whatever that is. Roberts cannot know that there were 500 registered lobbyists in Washington during World War II because lobbyists weren't forced to register until 1946. Gregg Easterbrook is not the editor of the New Republic. "No man gets left behind" is a line from the film Black Hawk Down, not the motto of the U.S. Army Rangers; their actual motto is "Rangers Lead the Way." In a breathtaking peroration, Roberts point out that "as a proportion of the total number of Americans, only 0.008 percent died bringing democracy to important parts of the Middle East in 2003-5." Leaving aside the question of whether those deaths have brought anything like democracy to Iraq, 0.008 percent of 300 million people is 24,000—off by a factor of 10, which is typical of his arithmetic. If you looked closely enough, I expect you could find an error of one kind or another on every page of the book.

1. One of a number of women regarded as oracles or prophets by the ancient Greeks and Romans.


2. A woman prophet.

1. Of or relating to a burial vault or a receptacle for sacred relics.


2. Gruesomely indicative of death or the dead.


3. Of sounds, hollow and deep.

Something made or put together using whatever materials happen to be available.

dogofthefuture

I myself don't think here-and-now is such a bad place to live. But others might. In fact, others do. At the same time, we cannot deny that some ways of life are, on balance, evil. The worst and most dangerous are those which cannot tolerate anything different from themselves.

So in an age of conflict we need a clear understanding of our own values -- and the enemy's. Likewise we have to see with equal clarity the drawbacks of both cultures. This is less a moral than a strategic imperative. Only on such a basis can we know what we ought to do and what is possible for us to do.

For we are not caught in a meaningless nightmare. We are inhabiting a real world where events have understandable causes and causes have effects. We were never given any sacred mission, and it would be fatal to believe otherwise. We do, though, have the right of self-preservation. Let us know what it is we want to preserve.

"You are saying that truth is relative."

"Am I? Then I shall have my tongue examined, or my head. Because I meant to say no such thing. Truth is absolute and for all time. But one man cannot envisage all of truth; the best he can do is see one aspect of it whole. That is why I say to you, be a skeptic, Hodge. Always be the skeptic.

"For the believer skepticism is essential. How else is he to know false gods from true except by doubting both? One of the most pernicious of folk sayings is, 'I cannot believe my eyes!' Why particularly should you believe your eyes? You were given eyes to see with, not to believe with. Believe your mind, your intuition, your reason, your emotion if you like -- but not your eyes unaided by any of these interpreters. Your eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination, as easily as the actual scenery. Your eyes will tell you nothing exists but matter--[and will liberate you from the superstitions of religion] in order to fall into a superstition so abject no Christian can conceive it."

1. Terse and energetic in expression; pithy.
2. Abounding in (or given to) aphorisms.
3. Abounding in (or given to) pompous moralizing.