Thursday, May 24, 2007

an evening out

From yesterday evening, an attempted moblog gone awry...




I can never get the hang of this fashionable lateness thing. No matter how late I think I am, no matter how fashionable I try to be, I'm always there way freakin early. Stupid law-abidingness, assuming rules are observed, and things are as they're said to be. Silly me.

It's not that I'm always punctual. I'm not at the office at the crack of 9 each day. Hell, usually it isn't the crack of 10 either. But get me outside my comfort zone and I become mr. On the dot. Here I am at the doug fir again, waiting on another dahlia show. Doors open at 8, I got here half an hour in, and... Nobody. This is what comes from being a non-inveterate concertgoer. I just don't grok the local folkways.

Doesn't help that there's no BB reception here, so I can't mess around on the net or anything. I'm such a nerd. So I'm dinking away on the gadget anyway, sipping a vodka tonic, trying to look tres chic for all the people who aren't here. And yes, I realize smartphones aren't a universal status symbol. At least w/o reception I won't get sucked into any office email threads. Lecturing about the usefulness of GetProcAddress is not my idea of a good time. At the moment, I mean. During office hours, playing guru is great fun (and much easier than doing real work). Did I mention I'm a total nerd? It's true.


This isn't the first time I've done this. Here's an earlier Doug Fir-based moblog attempt, which I looked at later and decided it wasn't worth posting, what with babbling on about politics and all. It's more sort of notes for a moblog post really. I include it here primarily so that I can do a fun post-within-a-post-within-a-post thing, with another layer of nested blockquotes:

Ok, so I still got here way early. I swear I'll never get the hang of this club thing.

Had a great time regaling all and sundry about the outsourcing fiasco. I think I got geek points yesterday. Also, spent part of today explaining the thing with windows file access times I blogged about a while back. I may not be the world's greatest buzzword engineer, but I am the king, the one true king, of domain knowledge.

Someday I'm going to have to post about unix auditing. Talk about domain knowledge.

Why don't I post about tech topics more often?

North korea, that I've threatened to post about for days: the fundamental issue here is that it's always a poor idea to make threats you aren't in a position to follow through on. Don't put someone in your axis of evil, and then give them 4+ years lead time to get ready for your plans, if you have any. I'm not saying dubya's policy is the only failed policy; the be-nice policy of s. Korea, china, and russia hasn't gotten results either. Other than possibly keeping someone in nk from starving. But it also doesn't aggravate the situation.

All W did was tip our hand years in advance. Scaring the baddies shouldn't be an end in itself. Always plan for how they might actually respond, don't just assume bullying them is bound to succeed.

Look at sco. They made all sorts of claims and threats against the linux world, and where are they now? They couldn't back it up when their target didn't back down, and there was no plan b. And even if there was a plan b, no matter how great it sounds, people remember it wasn't plan a. Democracy in iraq was plan b, after the wmd thing fell through. Plan b never gets as much credibility, or as wide a constituency. It's a fact of life.


See what I mean? Someone obviously needed to chill out and relax a little.





The WW had a big expose piece today alerting us that p-town is full of cokeheads. Not a "something should be done" piece like the O did with meth or anything. As far as I can tell, the point was partly to give us a knowing, lurid giggle, and partly so they could put a nagel print on the cover, and partly to coin the term "snortland", which you have to admit is kind of clever. I mention this because the piece mentions a bust going down in the doug fir's mens room a couple years ago. Greeeeeatttt. I'm not a judgmental person, generally, but this is one of the rare things that make me think less of someone. I've seen plenty of bad hollywood movies, and read about how they came to be. I'm pretty sure the coca plant is not a net benefit to humanity, just from that. We've already got quite enough arrogance and selfishness and greed going around already, thanks. I'm not saying put anyone in jail. I'm just saying cokeheads shouldn't be suprised when people make fun of 'em.




I did a blog post earlier today with even more photos. I never get a lot of orblogs visitors from those. And yet, they're easy, and it still never ceases to surprise me when I come up with photos that look good. I tend to be self-deprecating about it and credit the idiot-proof camera. And to a degree I'm right; I can get good results without having to know all that much about cameras, optics, etc. It's also nice to get good results w/o spending lots of money, because I'm cheap. I already have a camera - why buy another, until this one breaks?

It's also true, though, that I've always sort of wanted to be good at this. I had an old 110 camera as a kid and tried "artsy" shots even then. Not all that successfully, but I tried. It's the lack of instant feedback, and the cost of film, that held me back, I think. No more "make the shot count". Just take lots of pics, try lots of stuff, and eventually something may turn out ok.


[short break]

Again I wasn't too lucky getting anyone else within my orbit to come this time, but it's about the music, not the socializing with those who orbit me, really, so whatever.

There's a bunch of teachers sitting behind me, gossiping. They're all the same.

I swear I won't touch this thing when the music starts. I'm not quite that much of a nerd. I think.

Vodka tonic #2 now. Not great really, but cheap & inoffensive, & they come in cheap plastic cups. Awesome.

I sort of left off with the political posts the last few days. I at least ought to gloat about the election, but I haven't yet. Or gloat about Wolfie. At least Falwell's still dead, the bastard.

That'd be a good movie plot come to think of it: the rapture happens, separating souls from still-living bodies, which become the undead. Zombies? Vamps? Rapture is either magical, or corporate (enslaved zombies)

I'm full of genre movie plots. Did I ever tell you about my s&s plot? All those classic s&s pix were filmed in argentina during the dictatorship, in the runup to the falklands. Film crew has usual unheroic type characters, but has to save their people from the junta. Local creative types exactly the people who'd be under suspicion and get "disappeared". Juxtapose against film's hackneyed script (spoof?).

It's starting to fill in now. I've been here about an hour, so it's about time. Past showtime and no show yet. Bastards. I did *my* part, dammit. I'm not just a nerd, I'm a freakin' calvinist. Part-time, about some things, I mean.

For lunch today I tried Ziba's Pitas, the Bosnian cart up on Park by the Galleria. Yes, Bosnian. And I'm sold. Tomorrow, will it be Bosnian again, or the Peruvian joint a few carts down? I'm spoiled for choice, honestly. I lean towards Bosnian, because of the feta cheese thing. Mmmm...

Tptb tell me I'm working on Solaris again, which is awesome. My Sun box is relevant again, although I still need to get its damn video card issues worked out.


It'd be fair to wonder why I do this. I don't go to that many concerts, but I keep going to dahlia. A friend dragged me to the first one, and it was more than fun. It was *cathartic*, as silly as that sounds. That's rare. Then the vocal half went to nyc to seek her fortune, and I figured, never again will I experience that. Now she's back, and they've got all new material, and... Yeah. I've missed the last few monthly gigs, first because of the weather, and then that damn sore toe. It still isn't better exactly, but I'm doing this anyway, dammit.

So I'm perhaps not the most high-value fan a group could have. I admit that. But I think I do ok at it, anyway. It's not like 7th grade, it's not about impressing anyone, or getting societal approval or whatever. It's all about letting go for a while. Perhaps you don't realize how hard that is?


[opening act begins]
...

Sophe Lux, opening act. Show fine, music awesome. Maybe not dance -> 3/4 time often. Waltz, I dunno how. Bought 2 cds. Yes, typing on BB again, but no music right now. Gimme a break, already. I'm doing this for *you*, dammit. Show some luv.

...


[Show ensues]


...


Ok. Home now. Very tired. Happy. Did I say "tired" yet?


Zzzzzzzzz.....




Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld

1 comment :

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