Author: cdwan

The enclosed cut contains profanity, rudeness, and anger.

Look, everybody just go get a subscription to the NY Times that includes “Times Select.” Then you will be able to read these columns directly. ‘kay? Some of the opinion writers are too vitriolic even for my taste, but Friedman and Kristof, well, I’ll read just about anything they write. Todays example:

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If you ever wonder what it’s like to be me, here you go:

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New essay on Happiness is up.

This makes number 10 for the year, and I’m only running a little bit behind, since this one was supposed to be ready on Sunday. If I can finish another this week, I’ll be back on track.

I’m finding this to be a very worthwhile exercise. Writing is hard. Thinking is harder. This forces focus on both.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I have a band-aid on my neck, about halfway up on the front left. There is a little skin-tag there, and sometimes it gets irritated and requires some antibiotic and a band-aid. No big whoop.

At karate today, one of the kids asked “why the band-aid?” I looked him in the eye and said “I was chewing myself. This is just until it heals a bit.”

Then I got to watch that most joyful of things: A human mind crashing, and rebooting. Once he was up and running again, he wandered off. Nobody else asked.

This is a small example of why I tend to have few friends.

My mind is scattered. My focus gone. Woosh.

Got the Bach cello suites on the good headphones. Got the strong, dark coffee.

Monday the 13th, man.

This time, next week, I’ll be in Italy. It can’t happen soon enough.

First off: The movie Ultraviolet is easily among the five worst movies I’ve ever seen. So bad. As bad as Queen of the Damned. Worse than Blade II.

(1) It’s a goddamn VAMPIRE movie. No, I did not know this ahead of time. Color me “not a comic book guy”
(2) BAD computer graphics. There was, like, one real set in the entire movie … and it was a subway. I’m okay with CG as long as it’s (a) interleaved with real acting (b) not of brutally low quality. They faked a whole motorcycle race, and at no point did they cut in to show a real actress on a real motorcycle … thus giving a touchstone of reality. The whole thing was basically a 90 minute cut-scene from a high grade video game.
(3) Plot? Please.
(4) Dialogue? Please. “Are you going to kill me? Do you think you can?” Oh yeah, plus the classic “Sure, you’re as strong and as fast as me, but are you even one tenth as pissed off as I am?”
(5) Why would you take a perfectly hot actress, and spend a whole movie photographing her badly, in poor light, and in short cuts that give you no idea how she moves.

We staggered out, looking desperately for something *nice* to say about it. I finally hit on the fact that I like the idea of a disposable phone that prints on a piece of paper. It wasn’t any one thing, it was all the things.

I’m not getting that hour and a half back, am I?

Plants are in the ground. Peas, lettuce, chard, and radishes, all safely sown in the raised beds. The new configuration of the raised beds seems excellent. I can reach every portion of the garden without having to step on any of it. Rhubarb is also planted. Three plants at the Southeast corner of the house, and one by the driveway.

The only real downside is that I broke a mirror this morning, moving crap around in the basement. Fortunately, I’m not superstitious (knock on wood).

Most translation humor gets a pass from me, but this was just too good

Sea cucumbers have hoofs?