« Archives in November, 2006

If It Weren’t for Bad Luck I’d Have No (Good) Luck at All

November 30, 2006 / posted in Otherwise Uncategorized / No Comments

What did you do at work today? Did you enjoy moving pieces of paper around your cubicle? Today, our society deemed I was skilled and wise enough to make potentially life-altering decisions for my fellow man. Today, society told me, yes, we just might put someone’s life in your hands. Today, I was: a juror.
No, really, today was one of those days: everything started out looking all grey-skies but at the end the silver lining coated everything in an argyric sheen. Morning started early, with my alarm clock blaring its klaxon until I roused myself for a hot shower and then off to jury duty! Somehow I lucked into being called to the Beverly Hills courthouse, sparing me a long drive downtown with the rush-hour traffic. By 8:30am, modulo a detour through extremely uninterested security[1], I found myself in the grey-carpeted juror assembly room.
Jury duty shares something with delayed flights. Everyone waiting at the late plane’s gate becomes fast friends, sharing their stories of missed dinners and meetings and passing around information about rumored departure times and mechanical failings; everyone waiting at the jury room shares stories of missed orthodontists’ appointments, lines at Starbuck’s, and indignance at the justice system. It’s a cute little family, at least as long as you don’t consider what the consequences of everybody wanting to avoid jury duty are to a free society.
After checking in, I took a bathroom break and returned to every eye staring at me. “Are you Wade?” a fellow juror asked, and I answered yes[2]. They directed me to the check-in window, and everyone started to chuckle. Turns out I was two minutes late for roll call, and they’d already called everyone’s names. The nice check-in lady had said “last call for Wade!” at least twice, and I came in seconds after that final final warning. So I made it at the last possible moment to get recorded for actually having done jury duty today.
And then the payoff: the nice lady announced that the computer system had, in fact, screwed up, and that there was no need for jurors today at all. But, since they got us all there, we had completed our service for the year and could go home. So I went home at 10am and provided no value whatsoever to society.
On the way home, my check engine light came on. Since I’d already spent a remarkably large amount of money getting every oxygen sensor in my car replaced during the spring, this made me unhappy — check engine lights generally come on either because:
# The emissions control system is broken (this is the most common cause, at least in California)
# The whatzit what makes your car go, you know, the engine, it’s broke[3]
Since #1 was now extraordinarily unlikely, #2 became the probable outcome. I took the car to my friendly neighborhood mechanic and planted myself in his waiting room until he figured it out. Fortunately, I’d brought roughly twelve hours’ of reading material to jury duty, in order to stave off boredom, so a stay at Westside Brake and Tires would be little to no added inconvenience.
About forty minutes later, William, my mechanic, came in with a confused look on his face. “The computer’s giving us six error codes, which means six things are wrong. This is kinda unlikely. We’re trying to reset it ’til all the errors go away and then see if they come back. If they don’t, it’s an error in the errors — maybe you lost power for a second, or maybe something nasty in the gas, but nothing serious. I’ll be back as soon as we get it reset.”[4]
Fifteen minutes later, William’s back: they got everything reset, ran the car for ten minutes, took it around the block, no check engine light. I should take it home and not worry about it. No charge for the diagnosis. Did I want to stick around for the lunch truck?
Somehow, after two computers[5] had dragged me a quarter of the way around the Westside for no particuarly good reason, I became inspired to go home and spend time on my laptop. So I fled the auto shop, put my moment of juridical near-power behind me, and returned to my little house to knock a few things off my to-do list. Just like every other day.
fn1. The lady in front of me set off the metal detector; they didn’t even wand her, they just made her lift her pants so that they could see her ankles. Ankles? I didn’t feel safer.
fn2. I, in fact, am Wade.
fn3. I leave to the reader the act of pronouncing judgement on a user interface design that provides one single alert message for both a trivial error and a disastrous error requiring immediate user intervention. Oh no, wait, I don’t; that’s a crappy decision, guys.
fn4. Of course he said that all in a nice Dogtown Latin accent, so you should go back and re-read that paragraph with that sound for the full effect.
fn5. That is: the jury duty computer, and my engine computer. Thanks for playing.















Thankless

November 23, 2006 / posted in Otherwise Uncategorized / 1 Comment

Is there any time that seems later than mid-evening on Thanksgiving Day? Belly full of turkey, bloodstream full of tryptophan, the dark night outside empty and still as families sit together and share plates piled high with heirloom recipies, it could be 6 or 8 or even 2 am. It’s a good time to think about the year behind and the year ahead, and to give thanks for what went well and what we dream will go even better. Unfortunately, I’m an ungrateful bastard. Another year is almost gone, there have been good times and bad, but ahead I see an unfinished journey and I can’t bring myself to be thankful for that.
Perhaps that’s because this has been a year of transition, in the midst of years of transition, for me. Leaving my Web design company more than three years ago brought me onto a path of self-reinvention, with a new degree and new dreams. For two years, there was the concrete goal of business school, of achieving first at one assignment and then one class and then one semester and then finally graduation. Those goals alone were enough to occupy my mind as other dreams — most particularly, of a life with a woman — came and went.
But now that part of the transition is gone. And I’m on to a new part of the path, the journey that comes from imagining and starting a company. There’s wonder and excitement in that, for sure; I believe in what I’m doing and in the needs I will satisfy. At some point, however, reinvention becomes dull. I had liked my old dreams, and it was only circumstance that forced me to abandon them. I like my new dreams, but there are holes in them, holes that can’t be filled without wonderful people and realized futures.
I’m 31. I’m pursuing my dream. But the time is getting close that my dreams must start to be achieved, not pursued. For now I have the journey, a journey from which to learn but most definitely not one in which to wallow. So I’m not thankful for it, not until this journey has brought me to its end and I can look back in satisfaction. Then I’ll be thankful; until that time, my ability to give thanks is limited, emptily, to the positive in the moment.















Long Story Tellers: Poo on You!

November 20, 2006 / posted in Shit List / No Comments

I like stories. I like books, I like TV shows, I like one-man shows, I like long conversations in which people reveal their own personal histories. I even like people who tell short stories to illustrate their point. But, if your story takes more than about ten minutes, welcome to my shit list.
It’s not that all stories are a bad way to communicate; rather short stories are a very effective tool with which a point can be illustrated. The best kind of short story is short in length and short on characters and plotlines as well; you’re trying to illustrate something simple and concrete, and that goal doesn’t lend itself well to intricate, overlapping storylines and complex personas displaying varied and sometimes conflicting motivations. It’s also not a good time to go rambling, because, hey, you’re trying to illustrate a point, and that involves staying _on point_.
That’s one of the biggest problems with the long story, really — there are so many things going on in a long story that your point is likely to get lost in all of the other possible morals of that story. Also, it’s really hard to tell a long story well; we’re not all Homer that we can sit down and craft some long, elaborate story that holds together over a protracted telling[1]. Frankly, most of us ramble when we tell a long story, and that’s actually the worst possible thing you can do for your goal, because all you’ll do is:
* Confuse me, or
* Bore me, causing me to maliciously ignore whatever point you’re trying to make, or
* Get so off-course that you actually communicate something other than what you intended to communicate, causing me to adopt some position contrary (or unrelated) to what you intended I take away from the conversation.
(If you are a skilled plotter, and the type who can keep it together, then you can try the long story, but still: be wary of boring me!)
And remember: you have an alternative to telling the story. You could just, you know, say what you mean. Your story had better be superior to the simple option of stating your point, otherwise, you’re just wasting time you could be using to communicate additional points, or hear my reactions to your points.
So, if you’re trying to communicate with me via story, tell a quick, clear, unambiguous story, or just tell me what you mean. I’m a pretty thick-skinned guy and can take it straight out. But don’t tell the long, rambling story, because then you’ll lose me, you’ll piss me off, and you’ll end up on my shit list. Welcome to my shit list, long, disjointed, unfocused storytellers. You’ll never get off.
fn1. Yes, I know Homer may not have composed the complete _Iliad_ or _Odyssey_, and that, whatever he wrote, he probably evolved it over time, but you see my point, eh?















Us Birds Like Our Accustomed Perches

November 19, 2006 / posted in Graphically-Illustrated, Junior / 1 Comment

My dad’s screwing up my habits. I like sitting on my tree, grooming myself, then climb down to sit down on his lap while he sits on the couch. For two years, I’ve been able to cilmb to the low branch on my tree, tell him what a pretty bird I am, and get armpit scratchies from my dad, then climb down onto the couch and my dad’s lap and get kisses and scratches on the top of my wing. That’s just how I like it. But lately, he’s been sitting on the chair on the other side of my tree, and I don’t know how to get scratchies from him there!
When I’m a good bird and I talk nice, saying things like “pretty bird!” and “hello!” and “how are you?” my dad will take me out into the living room. This is what the living room looks like:
!/images/juniortree/thepanorama.jpg!
See, that’s my tree in the middle. I can sit on the top and groom myself and just hang out while my dad sits on the brown couch, which is what he always used to do. Then, I could climb down to see him:
!/images/juniortree/thesofa.jpg!
Look at that — there’s the low branch on the tree, the one I can climb on to so that dad can easily reach me to scratch me, the one that’s even low enough that I can climb from it onto the arm of the couch. I love that branch, it’s even low enough that if I say “gimme a kiss!” dad will lean over and kiss me.
The branch on the other side of the tree, however, is not as perfect. It’s too high, I can’t get all the way over to dad and he can’t reach up to scratch me there:
!/images/juniortree/thechair.jpg!
See, that’s just hard to get to. Plus, that was the branch I always went to when I wanted to be alone! You know, in the same room but alone. Maybe with the occasional “hello!” or a big stretch to say I was happy and comfy there, but didn’t need to cuddle. But now dad’s over on that side, in the chair, and it’s all wrong. I wish my dad would just go and sit in the couch again, but it seems like he’s a lot more comfortable on the chair with his computer on his lap; and since he’s been working on this blog and “his other blog”:http://wadearmstrong.com and that “Ruby on Rails thing”:http://rubyonrails.org he keeps on talking about so much, it seems like the chair is the best place for him.
So I guess that means I’d better either get used to going over to the other side of the tree, or dad has to move it. I hope he moves it! Maybe he could turn the tree around and put the low branch on the other side so that it’s easy to get to the chair? Of course then I’d have to figure out what to do about the couch, but, frankly, dad would probably be happy since I wouldn’t be able to climb down onto the couch and sneak up behind all the friends he brings home and climb onto their shoulders. Maybe he’ll read this blog entry and decide to try it!















Oy! The Traffic In This Town.

November 16, 2006 / posted in Photos / 2 Comments

There’s this overpass crossing the 405 near me, on Palms between Sepulveda and Sawtelle. They’ve been doing something to this bridge for nearly two years now, and have blocked off half of it to traffic. Unfortunately the blocked half is the good half, visually — every time I go past at night, I see miles of the 405 stretching downhill towards LAX, traffic bumper-to-bumper as it is on that fine freeway, just past the wooden scaffolding that the construction crew put up. To thousands, these red and white dotted lines track the futility of their commutes; to me, they look like great photography. Walk past the “construction – do not enter!” signs, throw in a little soft focus and shutter drag, and you get the below!
“!http://juniorbird.smugmug.com/photos/110724924-M.jpg!”:http://juniorbird.smugmug.com/gallery/2137647/1/110724924
“!http://juniorbird.smugmug.com/photos/110725385-M.jpg!”:http://juniorbird.smugmug.com/gallery/2137647/1/110725385
(I seriously can’t decide if I like the speckled lens flare in the two above; it’s kinda funky, huh? Also, obviously I can’t decide if I like sharp or soft focus for that shot.)
“!http://juniorbird.smugmug.com/photos/110725621-M.jpg!”:http://juniorbird.smugmug.com/gallery/2137647/1/110725621















Dear Kevin Federline

November 9, 2006 / posted in Dear So-And-So / 2 Comments

Thank you for getting divorced by Britney. I really appreciate that now you’ll have more time to spend on that which means the most to me — your music — and also to setting an example for me by bein’ a pimp. You and your bad self and your bad five o’clock shadow are truly inspirations to me.
However, next time you might try not to be an insipration to me by blowing it worse than any guy has ever blown it before. Now, it’s true, others wouldn’t have overlooked Britneys multi-millions, the bling with which she showered you, but you a true pimp, you know you can’t let no woman run your business, even if just spending time with her would keep her under your thumb. You got the moves and the lines — even your old woman, Shar Jackson, “sure seems like she’d take you back”:http://usmagazine.com/node/3637 now that you’re single again. And, hey, rumor has it that you were already offering yourself to other women at your show the very evening you got dumped. Via text message. “On video”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkq0w6ua_Sg.
Well, it’s Canadian video, so you know, it hardly counts. I’m still with ya big guy.
Speaking of your show, hey dude, I heard “your music”:http://www.kevinfederline.com/ and it is fiiiiine! I don’t know how you put that shiznizzle together but those beats must’ve been off some niiice sample CD, they sound almost like what you hear on video games and TV and stuff like that. Not bad for your first try! And whoever’s doing the singing on your tracks, good job, you can barely tell that you’re on there at all! I mean, it ain’t unique, but, then, who gets ahead by being different? No, it’s all about bein’ just like the CDs they all got in their changers already.
Oh, and that appearance on _The Megan Mulally Show_ last week? Haaarrrrrdcore! Those them beats that make me lose control, yeah boy.
Speaking of hardcore, I like how you went more _Lestat_ than gangsta with the font for your album art. Those curlicues, the split top on the L — it’s almost Beaux-Arts with a pinch of Art Nouveau. You’re like the 1870 Paris[1] of rappers.
I mean, Kevin, seriously, thank you. Like millions of American males, I’ve worried from time to time that I might fail miserably at something in life. But, K-Fed — I mean, Fed-Ex — you’ve done me an inestimable favor: you’ve lowered the bar. Not just taken it down a notch, but put it at about ankle level. Sure, you had your Ferrari that’s worth more than a BMW S-class, and you got to drink Cristal, but you know all that’s going away now, right? You had a recording career that they handed you as a favor to Britney, but you can’t even give away free tickets to the House of Blues, yo. That’s just sad, dude. No matter how bad I screw it up now, I can’t blow it as bad as you did.
And it looks like you ain’t gonna get no alimony, neither. What kind of a pimp gets no money from his woman? “Iceberg Slim”:http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/087067935X/ref=nosim/wadearmstrong-20 woulda told you the rookiest of all rookie mistakes is to lead with your dick — you led with your dick and you got Georgied[2]. Heck, you didn’t even get to enjoy Britney’s famous body; sure, you got a couple of months of unprotected sex but she’s been knocked up pretty much continuously since then, so all you got was two years of chubby, trashy, and probably bitchy pregnant Britney. Well done on that one.
Seriously, Kev, thanks, thanks from all of us guys for making us the ones who are successful at relationships, the ones who achieve things in life, the ones who can keep our shit together and manage not to get every girl we date pregnant. Have fun back in Fresno.
Best,
Wade
fn1. By which I mean “Going to “war”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-prussian_war with an enemy inestimably more powerful than you, who will destroy you completely, humiliate you, and cause your inevitable decline to the butt of a thousand jokes concerning how quickly you surrender. Plus kill or maim a generation of your men. On the upside, you do get to “invent margarine”:http://www.trivia-library.com/a/history-and-story-behind-inventions-margarine.htm.”
fn2. “Georgiaed: to be taken advantage of sexually without receiving money” Seriously, that’s what it says in the glossary of “Pimp”:http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/087067935X/ref=nosim/wadearmstrong-20. Could it be any more specifically accurate? Heck, I don’t even need to read the book to you — the little inside-the-front-cover teaser says it all: “‘A pimp is the loneliest bastard on Earth. He’s gotta know his whores. He can’t let them know him. He’s gotta be God all the way.’” Dude, if she was buying you the Ferrari… well, I can tell you that you didn’t fit the definition of God in that relationship, which means you ain’t no pimp, and, in the pimpin’ business, there’s only two jobs.















Juniorbird.com Mid-Term Election 2006 Endorsements

November 5, 2006 / posted in Politics / 6 Comments

Somewhere along the line, somebody got it into their heads that I knew something about this politics thing, and that I should make endorsements so that others know how to vote. Hah! Yet another fast one put over on y’all. But I will turn the lens created by my massive brain, regular reading of the LA Times, and BA in Poli Sci towards the morass of sleazy ads that is our 2006 midterm elections, and tell you how to vote to create my perfect society of all-powerful supermen, bwa ha ha ha!
OK, so first we need to get down some ground rules for making decisions about how to vote:
* Most, but not all, Republicans are evil
* All constitutional amendments are evil, because they’re permanent and essentially impossible to change, even if they’re a disaster like “Prop 13″:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%281978%29
* The state has the ability to borrow, as testified by our acceptable bond rating on Wall Street
* If people have a good history, re-elect or advance them; otherwise, kick the bums out!
So, taking all that into account, here’s the official Juniorbird.com slate.
h3. Statewide Offices
* Governor — Angelides. Schwarzenegger promised to bring us all together in a bipartisan love-in that took our state forward. Then he spent a few years fighting with the Democrats’ power base. For the last six months, he’s been what he promised, but is it an act to get re-elected? Who knows, but he hasn’t earned the vote. A pity Angelides will lose.
* Lt. Governor — Garamendi. He’s been great as Insurance Commissioner, so there’s no reason to think he won’t do well here. A solid future Democrat candidate for Governor.
* Secretary of State – Bowen. She’s also been strong elsewhere, and deserves the chance to succeed at a higher level. Also a solid future Democrat candidate for Governor.
* Treasurer — Lockyer. He’s been a good Attorney General, and, again, let’s keep advancing the careers of people who have been effective in Sacramento.
* Controller — Chiang. Westly did a good job in this position, and Chiang was one of his deputies. Keep up the success.
* Attorney General — Brown. As odd as it is to say, Jerry Brown is no longer a nutcase; instead, he’s built a strong record in Oakland and can be effective in this new role.
* Senator — Feinstein. Meh. But it’s not like there’s anyone else to vote for. Hopefully she’ll get a spine with the DMCA and national security in general, but she’s at least an effective advocate for the state.
* Insurance Commissioner — Poizner. Here’s your non-evil Republican. Bustamante has been sleazy since he lost to Schwarzenegger, while this guy appears to be reasonably uncorrupted by the insurance companies. While I hate to say “vote GOP!”, in this case it would be nice to have an actual reasonable — free-market, small-government, personal responsibility, libertarian, successful businessman — Republican to draw that party away from the far right in this state.
h3. LA County Offices
* Assessor — Auerbach. When the alternative is John “I legally changed my middle name to” Lower Taxes Loew, well, this guy will do just fine.
* Supervisor — Yaroslavsky. I’m not happy about supporting Zev, but that’s mostly because the system is so badly broken. Only five supervisors for the whole county? Nobody can represent their constituents in this system. Baltimore, with only 750,000 people, had 12 city councilpeople while I was growing up, and I think they just rearranged things so that there are actually more. Zev’s ineffective because the job’s too big, not because he’s incompetent.
* State Assebly Dist. 42 — Mike Feuer. Feuer did a great job in the City Council, and has the political chops and the brains to be successful in Sacramento.
h3. Propositions
* 1A — No. This effort to restrict gas sales tax to transportation only is an amendment, so I’m against it on principle. Also, it restricts the Legislature’s freedom to allocate tax money; if we won’t give our legislators the power to spend money, we might as well just not have legislators and do everything ourselves. Actually, this is kind of how things work in California now.
* 1B — Yes on this big infrastructure bond. We can afford it, and having good infrastruture helps both business and people.
* 1C — Yes on this bond as well. We can afford it, and battered women need shelters.
* 1D — Yes on this school bond. We can afford it, and spending money on our deteriorating, overcrowded schools is a good thing.
* 1E — Yes on this infractructure bond. After Katrina, we really need to update our deteriorating flood control systems, and, again, Wall Street seems to think we can afford it (they’re better at calculating these things than me).
* 83 — No. This law will restrict sex offenders from living… well, basically anywhere in many cities. All this will do is force offenders to move away from places in which they’re likely to be able to get jobs and encounter support services, and into rural areas where law enforcement resources are fewer (this has happened in areas in which this approach has been tried already). Our ability to reduce the recidivism rate is some function of police presence to deter the offender + support services to help the offender not want to offend again + opportunity for the offender to re-integrate into society. Prop. 83 reduces all three factors — especially worryingly, it forces the offender into an area with fewer police resources, potentially providing _more_ opportunity to re-offend. False sense of security indeed; if we can’t let sexual offenders in society, let’s not let them in society. ([_Ed. note: this paragraph was heavily edited both for factual correctness and to make a good point._])
* 85 — No. Parental notification for minor abortions places an enormous burden on girls with negative relationships with their parents, including possibly threatening their safety; this is the group on which the effect of this law will primarily fall, and, if it’s a bad idea for the main group it will affect, then let’s not do it.
* 86 — No. This is a constitutional amendment that will increase the taxes on cigarettes; a good idea, but not in amendment form.
* 87 — No. Financing the development of new technologies to drive energy independence from oil is a great idea, but, again, not in amendment form. If this big idea doesn’t work, we’d be stuck with it anyway; let’s test in revocable, law form, not irrevocable, amendment form.
* 88 — Yes. A small $50 flat per-parcel tax, financing education, won’t unduly harm any property-owners. Education was traditionally funded locally, until local access to property tax revenue was taken away by Proposition 13; this is a great way to get that money back.
* 89 — Yes. This state badly needs campaign finance reform, and this offers a relatively inexpensive and simple way for candidates to choose between public and private funding, and get meaningful amounts of public funding if necessary.
* 90 — No. This amendment would limit government’s ablity to utilize eminent domain and, perhaps, even to zone property. A property-owner who is deprived of their property, or some of its use, by government can already go to court to try to get more money for their property. But without zoning, you’d have factories in your neighborhood, and, without eminent domain, you’d have no freeways. No need to over-react to one scary court decision here, especially in essentially irrevocable amendment form.
So that’s my slate. And if you don’t vote it, you’re either a) evil or b) independent-minded. Don’t be evil!















Nobody Consulted the Interspecies Council on This Daylight Savings Time Thing

November 1, 2006 / posted in Junior / No Comments

Okay, so it’s Fall Back time; we all get an extra hour of sleep Sunday morning, and now we get to enjoy the cold, still dark that comes in winter evenings. Well, we could if we didn’t live in Southern California. But I digress. Birds, now, birds know nothing of these Daylight Savings Time changes. All they do know is that sometimes they’re tired and testy, and sometimes they’re ready to eat breakfast and get the day started.
That means that Daylight Savings Time gives me two hard weeks a year. Every spring, Junior gets woken up early and put to bed early; in revenge, he spends a good hour climbing around his cage, stomping around and clanging on the metal bars every evening until he gets used to the new schedule. In the fall, like now, he’s ready to get up early in the morning — it’s the same clanging and stomping, just now waking me up in the morning, not keeping me up at night — and then he’s cranky throughout the whole late evening.
It’s important to understand that an “Umbrella Cockatoo”:http://www.birdsnways.com/cockatoo/umb.htm is, basically, a two-year-old, and, like any other two-year-old, misbehaves when “overtired”:http://www.babycenter.com/expert/toddler/toddlersleep/13280.html. It starts with relentlessly adorable beahvior at about 10pm (his usual bedtime is 11:30, or 10:30 given the Daylight Savings change). He’ll start talking sweetly and quietly, saying “pretty white bird” and making kissing noises, but he won’t cuddle; he’ll walk to the far side of his tree-shaped perch in the middle of the living room and flirt from there.
About a half hour later he’ll start making his complaining noise — a grating groan from the back of his throat — and, if he has any energy left, he’ll lean forward, extend his wings slightly, and bounce up and down — typical begging behavior. Of course, he’s not begging for anything in specific, just to somehow be relieved of his worries. If I pick him up and try to take him to his cage, he’ll resist getting in and climb onto my shoulder. If I pick him up and try to sit with him on my lap, he’ll look at me with suspicion-filled, slitted eyes, then nibble on everything within reach. I like my stuff and don’t need little triangular beak-shaped holes in it. Well, in the it what doesn’t have little triangular beak-shaped holes in it already.
And whatever he does, he’ll sit there and say “good bird!” every few minutes until it’s bedtime, asking for reassurance that he is, in fact, a good bird. And he is, a sweet and good bird, and, in another week, he’ll even be a pleasant bird, sitting on my lap, wanting kisses and scratchies, and falling asleep nestled under my arm, until he finally goes into his cage, is covered with a blanket, and goes to bed, sleeping soundly until he comes out in the morning ready to kiss and cuddle. Now that’s the life a Cockatoo understands, not this time change thing.