Author: Jason

Seventeen years ago, I met a girl in a pool hall.

Random Thoughts

Last night I celebrated, with fifty or so friends, the tenth anniversary of my marriage. I had intended to stop the party at some point in the middle, perhaps nearer the start, to give a toast or speech. However, things got away from me, as they do, and there was too much fun going on to stop it. So instead, I write here a version of what I intended to say.

Seventeen years ago, I met a girl in a pool hall. We fast became friends. Fifteen years ago today, I was sitting on a bench in New Orleans overlooking the Mississippi River, waiting for that girl to return from the restroom. As I looked out across the river I was thinking about where my life was going. I had recently quit a job and moved into another that I wasn’t so sure about. But sitting there watching boats move along the water, I knew one thing for sure, and that was no matter what my future held I wanted that girl to be there with me. When she returned, I asked her to marry me. Ten years ago today, I was standing on a footbridge at River Street, next to city hall, in Savannah. We had been engaged for five years, and had finally decided that we were no good at planning a wedding, so we didn’t. We had quickly thrown together an elopement in a matter of days, witnesses, officiant, photographer, location, time, suit, dress – in that order. If you want to hear the full story of the pantsless wedding, buy me a drink sometime and I’ll be happy to tell it. But there I was, exchanging vows with the love of my life. Before then and since then, there have been good days and bad days and everything in-between days. But everyday, now and forever, as long as I have her by my side, I know that I have everything I need. I love you. Thank you for saying yes. And to all of my friends who were able to join us, and to all of the friends who were not, thank you for being a part of our lives.

Apologies to Paul Anthony Dobleman, whose art we stole for our invitations, and is displayed as part of this post. We didn’t ask permission, and so we beg forgiveness. Your artwork is superb.

The Trouble with Anonymity

Random Thoughts

I had just spent all of my savings on a modem, and I had come straight home, installed it and dialed up one of the numbers on the back of the MicroCenter sale paper. I heard the soon to become familiar modem tones and I was connected. The screen filled with ASCII characters and it asked me to login in, or to register. I chose to register and had to answer a series of questions, the first of which was my name.

I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the concept of being online. I had seen some movies and TV shows that had depicted connecting to these bulletin board services. And I had a couple friends who had gone into this world before me. This was an important moment. I was entering a world where I could be anyone I wanted to be. I simply had to decide.

I picked a name that day that I would use for nearly two decades. It wasn’t my name, nor was it the only one I would use, but it was the one I would use the longest. I finally abandoned it when I shrugged off the last vestiges of the life I created for it. The identity had been mostly dead for some time by then, and very unceremoniously I closed the last account I had for it.

In the early days, I fought very hard for that name. I kept it separate from myself in as many ways as I could, but it was still me, and much like if I found someone publishing things under my real name, I worked to defend it. It was MY identity.

And I wasn’t alone. Those days of the BBS and the early Internet were filled with people pretending to be someone else, but usually the same someone else most of the time. Sure, someone might create another persona for a specific thing – a MUD, or a fetish group, or piracy – but most people I knew maintained one main online identity.

Coming from that world, it confounds me when I run into things like *chan culture. The idea of a board with no identities, where everyone is anonymous, where every post is attached to no one, isn’t something I’ve ever wanted. I understand the idea, that ideas posted without the baggage of the person who posts it can allow the “best” ideas to bubble to the top. But I’ve rarely seen it work that way. Usually, unfettered by consequences, people are willing to say and support the shittiest ideas, the ones that hurt the most people. Some people might even be posting those ideas “for lulz” (for laughs), but quickly it becomes hard to tell if someone is joking or being serious, because you have no context.

Context matters.

Not too long ago, I was asked if a particular joke was “racist”. I won’t repeat the joke, because it is racist. However, the person who asked maintained that the joke itself couldn’t be racist, only if a racist person said it could it be taken that way. Simply telling the joke didn’t make the person racist. I agreed with the last part, but disagreed with the earlier bit. See, it was a Holocaust joke, and the joke itself, just the words, provided without context – without knowing who was telling it, and to what audience, and in what tone, and surrounded by what other words – the joke was simply about Nazis killing Jews, which was done for racist reasons, and thus the joke is racist. However, if I were standing outside a synagogue with a group of Jewish people, and one of them told that joke in the context of terrible jokes racists tell, I might laugh, because it’s a dumb racist joke being told to show how dumb and racist it is.

So on an Internet forum, one that doesn’t have full anonymity, I can see ForumDenizen287 post something that might be offensive. However, having read hundreds or thousands of other posts by ForumDenizen287 over the years, I know that they are not being serious. But over on a *chan site with full anonymity, the same post is without context. I cannot see the history of the poster, because everyone is anonymous. So a terrible offensive post defaults to being a serious terrible offensive post.

A member of those *chan sites might maintain “but we are ALWAYS joking!” And it might be true, for that person or even for many people. But if a forum is filled with hateful, racist posts, it will inevitably attract actual hateful, racist posters who aren’t joking. And you can’t tell them from anyone else, because all the posts are anonymous. You can’t see someone’s history and place posts in context.

To make things worse, the people who maintain that it isn’t serious become a shield for the ones who are serious. And ultimately, if you have a group of people, whose identities you cannot separate, some of whom are racists and some of whom are only pretending to be racists for comedic effect, it is safer for an outsider to treat them all as racists. Sure, you could just as easily treat them all as being people pretending to be racists for comedic effect, but then when one of the real racists is spurred to action, emboldened by all the support of his racist friends online, some of whom were only pretending to be racist but were encouraging him just the same, who is responsible? I can tell you from seeing it happen again and again that the people who think it’s just joking around will say that they can’t be responsible for “third party” individuals who do things on their own, and by the way you can’t prove they encouraged the guy anyway…

Ultimately, it makes me sad to see so many people fighting to shirk responsibility. Anonymity has it’s uses for sure. For whistle blowers, or other situations where truth needs to be told and the teller needs to be protected. And I’m sure there are other reasons. But I just can’t get behind anonymity protecting assholes being assholes for asshole reasons.

Jeg kalder

Random Thoughts

One question that comes up from time to time among friends or strangers is “If you could choose any super power, what would you choose?” It’s one of those questions that if people take it seriously can actually tell you a lot about the person, especially if you get into discussing why they chose the power they chose.

A lot of people choose flying. And I admit, being able to fly would be pretty awesome, as long as it was Superman flying and not Andrew Clements flying. If you don’t know who that is, look up “My Secret Identity”, a TV show from the late 80s. Another popular one is to be invisible. For me, science gets in the way of that one, because if your eyes are invisible then you are blind. Then you get invulnerability, super speed, strength, and a slew of others. And you’ll probably get some joker who says “The power to have any one super power at a time.” or “All the powers!” Ignore that person.

Having given this much thought over the years, I always comes down to two options for myself. The first is immortality. The idea of living forever always appeals, because I look at how much things have changed just in the last couple hundred years and it really makes me not want to miss out on what comes after the next hundred. There is a drawback, of course, with the unnaturally long life of losing everyone you ever care about. Immortal people, by necessity I think, either will be detached or depressed. The second option, and the one I usually end up picking, is the ability to be able to understand and speak/write all forms of communication.

I’ve always been fascinated by language. In middle school I took a half year of French and a half year of German. I took two years of Spanish in high school. And in college I took two years of Japanese. I can’t actually speak any of these languages with any fluency, but I can pick out words and I’ve got some phrases down, but conversational speaking has atrophied with disuse. I want to learn more, and use what I do know more, but it requires effort that I seem unable or unwilling to put forth.

Oh, and one other language (and the reason for this post), I can (sorta) play strip poker in Danish.

It’s a very specific bit of knowledge, but when I was 13, I got a modem, and I went online for the first time. And it was there that I encountered software piracy in the form of a strip poker game. I downloaded it, and I installed it on a floppy disk that I purposefully mislabeled, and late at night when no one was around, I would load up Artworx Strip Poker and play, so that I could play poker and see naked girls in all 16 glorious colors. It would be a year or two before we got a VGA card to allow the girls to be in 256 colors. Despite the game being made by a US based company, the pirated copy I obtained was from elsewhere. And this elsewhere happened to be Denmark.

Jeg kalder. Jeg trak et kort. Jeg rejser.

It is so burned into my brain that when I play or see poker, those words come into my mind. I’ve even had to resist the urge to actually say “Jeg kalder” when playing. And honestly, I don’t even know if the translations are correct, but it is what was in the game.

Perhaps I should actually try to learn Danish.

The Magic Spreadsheet and Other Plans

Random Thoughts, Site News, Writing

I noticed the other day that in 2015 I had only written one blog entry. Normally I would have an excuse that I had been writing elsewhere, but I haven’t. Most of my writing projects have puttered out.

First and foremost, I stopped doing reviews for Shakefire. The main reason I stopped was because of the garbage I was being given to review. I don’t blame the guy running the site, he has things that need to be reviewed, and since I have a regular day job I can’t go see movie screenings in the middle of the day, so instead I get mailed a pile of DVDs and CDs. While the music was of varying quality, and I even discovered a new band or two, the movies were almost all terrible. The lowest budget of horror films. It is depressing to always review garbage. So I quit.

Next, for “reasons”, the Man vs Wife series of game reviews I was doing petered out.

I also tried writing some fitness blog type stuff. But I’m not very fit (yet) and what I wrote was trash.

There are various projects I have by noodling with, but I’ve been down on fiction writing ever since I pushed myself to “win” NaNoWriMo a couple years ago. Winning involved me just puking out the most insipid drivel I’ve ever written and soured me on the novel and on writing.

All that leads me to my new effort to get back into writing. This new writing will include blogs and other things, but all of it will result in a daily word total that I will put up on The Magic Spreadsheet.

What is The Magic Spreadsheet? Well, it’s this. That’s a link to a Facebook group where you can find the link to the latest spreadsheet. Basically, it is a tool to try to encourage writing every day. To join, you just open the spreadsheet (it is a Google Doc) and find a free line on the appropriate page (the first sheet includes instructions on how to find the right page) and put your name on it. Then you write, and you come back and put your totals in. You earn points, both for how much you writer and for how long your unbroken chain of daily writing is. When you have enough points you can level up, which allows you to get more points for writing more. At the lowest level you need only to write 250 words a day. That’s just a couple paragraphs. I mean, this blog post is over 700 words. As of this writing, I am on my 3rd day. Hopefully I can stick with this.

In addition to the Magic Spreadsheet, I’m also trying to put together a schedule for some other projects I have, things I need to do on a regular or semi-regular basis, most of which involve writing, but some of which involve drawing, and some involve speaking, and some involve music, and some involve exercise.

Oh, exercise. I’m back on the 5BX bandwagon. If you are reading this and it intrigues you and you are a woman, there is XBX for you. I have finished the first chart and moved to the second. The full push-ups of the second chart are proving to be more difficult, so my progress has slowed.

With exercise goes “diet”, and by that I don’t mean “doing some fad binge thing to try to lose weight fast and then gain it all back when I quit”. What I mean is making small changes to my diet to include better foods. More vegetables, less junk. More water, less soda.

And both the exercise and diet are being spurred on by the fact that I’m going on a cruise the first week of July, and I would like to be in much better shape by then.

All of this comes on the heels of recently reading Surprisingly…Unstuck. I’ve read a few self help / motivation books before, but this one has to be one of the cleanest presentations of simple information that is bound to work for everyone. Most of it is exceedingly simple, but also the sort of things you might not think about on your own until someone points them out. In fact, it’s so simple that the book gets a bit repetitive at the end. Still very worth reading.

So, that’s it for now. I’m going to try to be back here more often, if for no other reason that to keep a log of things I’m doing for myself and to point the five people who might be reading my blog to other projects of mine as I work on them.

Quiet, men are gawking.

Random Thoughts

The Latest Metal Gear Solid game is out and it features a bad ass female sniper named Quiet … who the developers decided would work best if she spent the entire game in a bikini. The fu..?

Oh, it gets better. See, her being nearly topless while being a stealthy assassin would be fully justified by the story, they said. Yeah, well, turns out that the “story” is that she has superpowers and absorbs oxygen, sunlight and water through her skin, and it allows her to do stuff like, I think, disappear into smoke or something. Fact is, I don’t really know, because my desire to play the game vanished when they released the action figure of her with squeezable titties.

That’s right. The figure is made of a soft plastic that allows you to mush her boobs together to enhance her already ample cleavage.

But I didn’t write this post for that. No, no. I wrote this because there are apparently a couple of really terrible cut scenes in the game that actually make her depiction worse. And to fully illustrate how dumb and sexist it is to use Quiet in this way, an Internet genius did a model swap and put the character of Ocelot into Quiet’s place. So here, enjoy these scenes with Ocelot and keep in mind that in the actual game the part is played by a bikini clad woman.

Anxiety and Phone Calls

Random Thoughts

I don’t like talking on the phone. There are two reasons for this, I’ll get one out of the way quickly because it is less important than the other.

A key component for me when conversing with people is being able to see them. When you consider that I am posting this to a blog and I’m fairly active online (and have been since the late 80s in some form or another) it seems counter-intuitive. But, in my brain, this is writing, which is different from talking. I can write, and people write back, and if I get a particularly heated or spiky response from someone, I’m not on the spot to immediately reply. I can take my time and consider the position and give a thoughtful rebuttal if it is warranted. When I talk to people, how they react, in their face and body, to the things being said supply great information for keeping from kicking over too many hornet’s nests, and also to encourage conversation if the response is positive. But when on the phone, all that drops away, and I can’t see a person rolling their eyes or gritting their teeth or fidgeting with their fingers. They might be doing those things, but I can’t see them. I don’t like this.

But the larger reason why I don’t like to talk on the phone is almost a post traumatic stress response. For years, for more than two decades, I have worked in some form or another in a customer service related position. These days I do much more programming than support, but being at a smaller company I still have to occasionally answer the phone. Because my jobs have almost always leaned toward support instead of service the people I talk to usually are having a problem and not just asking a question. And more often than not they are angry about the problem. I can do my best to try to defuse their anger, but it doesn’t always work. So the bulk of my experience using phones is to have someone yell at me.

These days, when I need to make a phone call, I pick up the phone and before I start dialing I can feel my heart speed up. My foot will start to tap or my leg start to twitch. I might even feel my face flush with heat and break into a little sweat. I know, I know, that the majority of the people I speak to on the phone these days are not going to yell at me, but I’ve been conditioned. I cannot stop my physiological and psychological response.

It’s a terrible thing that I should probably talk to someone about so I can get past it, but healthcare in this country… I won’t go there, it makes me angrier than having to talk on the phone. Anyway, so that’s why, if you need me, you should email me, or text me, or catch me on Facebook, or just drop by the house and we’ll play some board games. All of these options are better than calling me on the phone.

Washington DC: The Rest of the Story

Travel

Originally I wanted to do a post per day while I was on vacation, and I did… for two days. After the third day I was so tired that I didn’t. And then day four was the same. And day five… We had a wonderful time, saw a lot, and did much, but walking almost everywhere took it’s toll on us.

In total, we got to see five and a half of the Smithsonian museums, plus about half of the zoo. We saw Madame Tussauds, which was simultaneously interesting and super creepy. We ate food at a bunch of local joints. And we saw a number of monuments.

We also got to stroll along several of the streets of Capitol Hill where we were staying, and it was lovely. The neighborhood and the city made us decide that if we ever win the lottery we will probably move there.

We happened to be in DC for the 4th of July, which was crowded and crazy and absolutely glorious. We sat on some grass out in front of the Lincoln Memorial and watched the best fireworks show I’ve ever seen in the sky above the reflecting pool.

So, final thoughts on the vacation:

  • If you go to Arlington National Cemetary, pay the $9 for the tram tour. It is the best $9 you will spend your entire vacation. Anyone who tells you that anything in that place is “just a short walk” from anywhere is a damned liar. If you decide to save the $9, bring lots of water and sunscreen, and plan to spend literally all day there walking.
  • We rented an apartment through airbnb.com and it was great. Nicely located about a mile off the Mall on Capitol Hill. I would totally do this again, and after 2 successful vacations using the site, I’m prepared to go there first before hotels for pretty much any future vacation.
  • The daytime bus tours are kind of a ripoff. Especially when you consider the air conditioning almost never works, and even though they promise live tour guides, most of the buses have broken PA systems so the tour guide can’t work the bus and you get to listen to the pre-recorded stuff. But that’s sort of okay since the tour guides make the most predictable lame jokes and they all make the same jokes. However, the night tour was pretty great, because it actually stopped at monuments and the tour guide got out and showed us stuff.
  • A week is not enough time in Washington DC. I want to go back. I will go back. There are still like a dozen Smithsonians to see.

Washington DC: Day 2

Travel

Sleep. Normally I get about 5 hours a nice, maybe 5. It is my standard running number. Maybe it shouldn’t be, but it is. On vacation, however, I can usually manage more. 7.

The goal for the day was simple. Find breakfast. Go to the National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Visit a grocery store for some food for the week.

Being the first non-travel day, we were slow to rise and get moving. So breakfast almost became lunch, until we found an IHOP. I got lunch anyway.

We arrived at the Udvar-Hazy Center and it was closed. Not really, but apparently Google Maps likes leading people to the entrance that is restricted to staff only on the weekends. So we had to call the museum to get better directions to the correct entrance.

The museum is amazing, wall to wall and floor to extremely high ceiling with flying machines. Planes and helicopters and balloons… and space.

I’ve seen in TV and movies, read in books, people who repress or for other reasons have a delayed reaction to things. In 1986, when I was 11 years old, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded during launch. Perhaps because I was too young, or perhaps because I didn’t really understand death, or maybe because of the manner in which the news was unfolded to me, as a child I didn’t react to the news.

When it happened, our school was supposed to gather for assembly and watch it together, but for whatever reason they decided it was too much trouble or something, and we just had a normal day. The launch came during lunch and recess for my class. While we were on the playground, my teacher was with some of the other teachers who also had the same lunch and recess periods in the teachers’ lounge watching the launch. We returned from recess and Mr. Strykowsky sat at his desk, unusually quiet. The normally boisterous man who was always joking and laughing sat, his hands folded on the desk in front of him, staring blankly into the middle distance.

Kids, at least at that time, loved space. And with Christa McAuliffe on board, it was doubly so. You might dream of being an astronaut, but doing that is a long road with very few people making it. But Christa was a teacher who made an end run around the usual program. A back door into space. We were all excited about a regular person making it onto the shuttle.

One of the other kids asked how the launch went. “It blew up.” It was all he said. Because he was the type to joke around, I don’t think any of us really believed him. It didn’t become real until I got home and there was nothing else on television, the footage replayed on a near constant loop. But I was detached. I didn’t cry or even really feel it.

The Wife and I talked about photos while we ate at IHOP. We laughed as we came up with the idea of taking photos of very large things from far away while one of us was standing next to the object. Imagine a photo of “Jason at the Washington Monument” and it’s a photos of the full height monument, and at the bottom is a little spec with a red shirt – me.

There is a high walkway in the Udvar-Hazy, equivalent to a third floor. From this walkway you can look down the hall toward the Space Shuttle Discovery, its nose pointed right at you. The Wife waited up on this walkway while I headed down to stand next to the shuttle, to be the little red dot.

As I made my way down the hall, the shuttle loomed before me, growing in size as I approached. I passed people stopping to take photos, themselves large in the frame with the shuttle small in the background. I’m over a hundred feet away and my vision begins to blur. I rub my eyes and my hands come away wet. As I get closer, tears begin to roll. When I get to the shuttle it is undeniable, I am crying. And I can’t seem to stop.

I walk away from the shuttle and climb the stairs to meet up with The Wife. When I get to the top I’ve gotten control of myself and we finish touring the airplanes. When we return to the space wing, the feelings still well up, but they don’t explode out of me again.

We picked a good day to be here… well, picked is a strong work, lucked would be better. The United States Navy Band Commodores were giving a free concert in the hanger. It was lovely.

Then we went to Wal-Mart. Every vacation has to have its less than glorious moments.

Washington DC: Day 1

Travel

We arrived in the nation’s capitol just after 6pm. Quickly we settled into the 1 bedroom apartment we’d rented for the week, cleaned up a little after the 7 hour drive and headed out to dinner.

The Wife wanted to go to Hard Rock, mostly to visit and add a shirt to her collection, but we decided to eat as well. We were staying at a place on the corner of E & 10th NE. The Hard Rock is on the corner of E & 10th NW. That makes it roughly 20 or so blocks away, 2 miles. We walked.

Washington DC is a beautiful city. There is a ton of history here and lots of old buildings. Perhaps I just haven’t hung around the right neighborhoods in Atlanta but that town never had that sort of presence to me. The first 10 blocks of our journey, from our temporary home to Union Station, was through a primarily residential area. Lots of homes with little gardens on their front steps. A few were for sale and we talked about how cool it would be to live here. I picked up the flyer for one of these homes. 2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, kitchen, den… $800,000. Well, maybe after we win the lottery.

Once we passed Union Station we cross from the NE to the NW side, and the once declining street numbers started to rise. I don’t know if I have ever encountered this before. It seems like it would be sort of confusing… says the guy from Atlanta, land of a thousand Peachtree Streets.

This side was pretty much all business, but rather than the skyscraping towers of glass and steel you might get elsewhere, here the buildings all have a more storied and solid look. The city feels grand even though it isn’t tall. The business side also has homeless people. And a couple of sketchy areas, especially during the walk back after dark. Even so, I never felt in danger, but then I’m a guy and I’ve been told a semi-scary looking one too. It’s the shaved head and goatee.

It’s nice to be in walking distance of so much and I look forward to exploring over the next week here. I brought two pairs of shoes but I suspect I’ll be wearing the hiking boots most of the time. I like the look of my black sneakers and they are good for the office, but the padding is inadequate for long foot journeys. The Wife brought six pairs of shoes, none of them are hiking boots. And our first night walking she chose to wear sandals.

The blisters are epic. The last block or two I thought I was going to have to carry her, or leave her behind to save myself. Luckily we weren’t being chased by Nazis or zombies or Nazi zombies or zombie Nazis – there is a difference, one are Nazis who died and reanimated, the other are zombies who decided to become Nazis – so I didn’t have to make that choice, just walk a bit more slowly.

We returned to the apartment and tumbled into bed.

Kids Today

Random Thoughts

This post probably isn’t going to go the way you think…

I’m at the gym. I’ve just spent 30 solid minutes swimming. I’m tired. As I’m at the locker getting ready to shower, two gentlemen in the same aisle are having a conversation.

Gentleman 1: I just don’t get it.
Gentleman 2: Me either.
G1: They just want to sit at home and stare at screens.
G2: Yep.
G1: When I was their age, sure I had an Atari, we even had a computer, and TV, but I still went out riding bikes and playing with other kids, and sports and camping and all that.
G2: The kids today have changed. It makes it hard on us parents.
G1: It was never this hard for my parents.

This was the point where I stepped in.

Me: You mind if I jump in?
G1: Your kids spend too much time inside too?
Me: Oh, it’s not that. Let’s me ask. You have kids, right?
G1: Yeah.
Me: And they have bikes?
G1: Yeah.
Me: And when they ride them, do you make them wear safety helmets?
G1: Of course!
Me: When you were their age, you had a bike?
G1: Indeed.
Me: And your parents, did they make you wear a helmet when you rode it?
G1: No, but things were different then.
Me: How?
G1: It was more safe.
Me: No, it wasn’t. Riding a bike today is exactly as dangerous as it was when you were a kid. The only thing that has changed is that science now understands injuries better, and studies have shown that kids on bikes can survive bruises and scrapes, but a head injury can be traumatic and lasting. Wearing a helmet significantly reduces the chance of sustaining a head or brain injury.
G1: So?
Me: That was true back in the 70s and 80s too, we just didn’t know it yet. You should have been wearing a helmet back then. Your parents were terrible parents.
G1: They didn’t know any better!
Me: Right! And if they had told you to wear a helmet, you probably would have thought it was dorky. And if they said you couldn’t ride the bike without the helmet then you probably would have ridden the bike less and played more Atari.
G1: What are you saying?
Me: Kids today have changed, but not entirely on their own. Kids today are sometimes reacting to how parents have changed.
G2: What’s wrong with parents changing?
Me: Nothing. Just stop blaming the kids for it.

Then I went and showered.

I admit, I don’t understand a lot of things that kids do these days. But I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t understand what I did all the time either. And so, when I see a kid do something that I don’t get, rather than lament “Kids today!! Ugh!!” I try to understand why they’re doing it instead.