Bang and Whimper

Pardon me while I indulge in just a touch of wistful self-loathing, made beautiful by my dear friend Miss Emily Brontë:

I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask no eye would mourn
I never caused a thought of gloom
A smile of joy since I was born

In secret pleasure—secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years
As lone as on my natal day

There have been times I cannot hide
There have been times when this was drear
When my sad soul forgot its pride
And longed for one to love me here

But those were in the early glow
Of feelings not subdued by care
And they have died so long ago
I hardly now believe they were

First melted off the hope of youth
Then Fancy’s rainbow fast withdrew
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew

’Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow servile insincere—
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there

Thank you, Emily. I shall always treasure the times we spent together.

NP: Taking Back Sunday, Cut From The Team

Not that it matters much, but I spent tonight making a few small but nifty changes to the ol’ website. First, I added a “robots.txt” file to tell spiders and crawlers which pages should be indexed. You won’t notice any difference as a result, of course (unless you happen to be one of said spiders/crawlers…), but it sure will clean up my referrer logs, which tend generally to be a big mess of 404s.

In a further effort to clean the logs, I have also added the all-important “favicon.ico” icons to my pages. If you are accessing my pages using Internet Explorer, you are unlikely to notice any change, unless you bookmark my page. Netscape 6+/Mozilla and Opera users (as well as Safari, I believe, though I need to check on that) should see a small JokeofAllTrades icon in the address bar of their browser (if the bar is displayed), and as an added bonus it should match the selected skin/color scheme for the site. Pointless? Yes, of course. But moderately fun for me, and no trouble for you.

NP: Pineforest Crunch, Situation Endless

I find the dynamics of internet meme popularity fascinating. Something explodes onto the scene, sort of plateaus in popularity, and then it hits a secondary market of sorts—a whole new population that missed it on the first go-round—and it takes off again.

The latest of these to hit my inbox first arrived almost two months ago. It was a simple request to go to Google, type in “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button. Up pops a page that looks like the standard Internet Explorer “This page cannot be displayed” page, but with some added social commentary (the effect is naturally somewhat diminshed for those of us who don’t use MSIE all the time). I hesitate to create another link to this thing, but if you must see it, you can find it here.

Strangely, this thing has shown up in my inbox almost 10 times in the past week. Normally, the only email I get is spam, but this has been coming from friends. I do appreciate the thought, that you wanted to share with me a laugh, or at least a dolorous smile and shaking head. Really, I appreciate it. I can only say, though, at this point: message received. No need to send me another message telling me to Google “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

I should also probably clear up some seemingly common misconceptions. First of all, the page to which the message refers has nothing to do with Google. It’s a piece of satire written by a guy who maintains a website about adverse drug reactions. Second, he wrote it months ago. Now, it’s everywhere.
If, by chance, it is (or was) the first page that Google returns on that particular search, it has gotten there entirely because certain people keep sending other certain people to that page, and certain people keep linking to it, etc.

If you want to know what memes are “fresh” and what aren’t, there is help. Good places to look include Memepool and Boing Boing and, you know, Google.

</vent>

On an entirely different note, I think I’m teetering on the edge of insanity. All I can say is, “Ooh, the pretty colors!”

NP: The Decemberists, Grace Cathedral Hill

On Saturday night, the hard drive on my server melted down. For the most part, this wouldn’t be an issue, since everything is backed up nightly, but I did lose everything I updated during the day on Saturday and any (heh—joke at my own expense to follow) comments that anyone might have left.

Of course, Saturday was the day I had chosen to write large amounts of wildly interesting things and to add several new and fascinating links to my links page. All gone bye-bye.

In place of all that I have lost, I can only substitute a few paltry neat-o links I was able to remember, since I am currently on lunch at work, and I’ve been here since 7:00 a.m., and I was up quite late last night working, and I’m too tired to give you anything requiring thought on my part.

Still, these are pretty swell links. Adam Felber is a frequent panelist on the NPR game show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!. Turns out, he’s also a blogger. Funny, too. He’s also running for president.

Also, see Dreems for loads of fun. For some reason, it reminds me of Shel Silverstein.

NP: Edith Frost, Wonder Wonder

I went to a Starbucks today; I hate their coffee, but I live in an “upscale” neighborhood, which means that Starbucks is the only place one can go and sit for awhile without spending $40 on drinks. I finished my book, finally, but not without considerable distraction; I know I am fundamentally a loner, even a bit afraid of other people, but I still (still!) can’t help watching longinly as cute girls pass within my field of view. My heart breaks a hundred times a day. It’s juvenile, this attachment to others, the desire for beauty and love, the belief in “love” as an abstract entity, the hope for companionship and empathy and common interest, but I simply can’t shake it. At my root, I am thus juvenile. I still fight the urge to dislike everyone I encounter, even if they blow smoke in the faces of the people behind them, even if they walk three abreast on a narrow sidewalk, even if they drive without signalling or stopping at stop signs, even if they spit on the sidewalk, or walk their dogs in the public park, or smell bad, or yap incessantly and insipidly with their loud and stupid companions, or do any of the myriad little things that don’t quite qualify as crimes but nevertheless reveal the depth of inconsideration and frivolty of the general public. I still desperately want not to hate them, not to despise them, not to find them in contempt of all that is or could be beautiful in humanity. But I have yet ever to meet, face to face, another human who shares any of my greater sympathies, who has read Chamfort (or even heard of Chamfort), whose spirit soars with mine when discussing the development of institutions for the betterment of mankind, who understands and desires and loves like I do. I have never met anyone with whom I could discuss any of the things I hold most dear in the world.

(Read more…)

WELCOME TO JOKEOFALLTRADES (JoAT) v2.3!!

I’ve finally done it. I’ve gotten rid of that horrid page I designed three months ago and have replaced it with something slightly less horrid. I hope you like it. At least, I hope you dislike it less than the last version. Over the next few days, I’ll convert the rest of the site to conform to the new format, with a few additional changes in places to keep things lively. Oh, I do hope you like it!

JoAT v2.2 offers the following advantages over its predecessor:

• It looks prettier
• It’s more customizable
• It’s easier to maintain
• It makes me happier

…

Eh. None of that is actually true. There is no JoAT v2.3. This is plain ol’ JoAT v2.2, only older. The only thing new here is my half-hearted resolve to occasionally post some vague and toothless thoughts about this thing I nominally call my life.

Because the entirety of my conscious life is now spent at work, and because I have no regular outside hobbies, passions, activities or pursuits, I don’t have a whole heap to talk about. I’m sorry if you somehow stumbled across this page and actually spent valuable time reading any of this, but I really can’t be held responsible for your stupidity. Unless perhaps if you were a student of mine. Then you can probably blame a large portion of your stupidity on me. But I’m sure you deserved it.

Anywho, I’m back, for now. Go forth and celebrate.

NP: Garmarna, En Gång Ska Han Gråta [One Day He’ll Cry]

I’’ve been reading Kundera’s Ignorance for the past few days (it’s ridiculously short, but I only get to read for a few minutes at a time) and have decided that it is by far the best best-book-ever book ever. Only, it has brought to my attention that I shall never love again the new, the strange, the unfamiliar. I will be inspired to love only to the extent that I will be inspired to nostalgia; the two emotions are indistinguishable to me. All nostalgic memory has a sweetness to it, and only that which reminds me of my former loves holds any new interest to me. If I love you now, it is only because I once loved someone much like you some time before, even if it was you in the past.

NP: The Samples, African Ivory

“And what is the student doing in the office?” asked Zarathustra.

The student answered: “I make songs and sing them; and when I make songs, I laugh, I cry, and hum: thus I exercise my spirit. With singing, crying, lauging, and humming, I exercise the spirit that is my spirit. But what do you bring us as a gift?”

When Zarathustra had heard these words he bid the student farewell and said: “What could I have to give you? But let me go quickly lest I take something from you!” And thus they separated, the young one and the man, laughing as two boys laugh.

But when Zarathustra was alone he spoke thus to his heart: “Could it be possible? This young man in the office has not yet heard anything of this, that his spirit is dead!”

Ripped and adapted shamelessly from Kaufmann’s translation of Zarathustra.

I am in mourning. I am in mourning for my passion, my interest, the liveliness and caprice and energy of my curiosity. It is irretrievably gone; it has parted; it has left. All my curiosity is idle curiosity, curiosity for lack of anything worthwhile to occupy my thoughts.

I am in the middle of a series of large and serious changes in my environment, habits, circumstances, opportunities and routines. I’m changing cities, jobs, friends, occupations, direction in life. I’m weathering a tremendous quake, my world is being shaken to its roots—and no one else has felt a tremor. This man, whatever the old cliché might say, is an island. An old volcano, falling dormant.

NP: Interpol, Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down

I know I’ve mentioned Lemony Snicket quite a bit recently, and I don’t want to appear obsessed (it’s not important if I am obsessed, I just don’t want anyone to think I am). This is the last time I’ll mention him for awhile, I promise. I just found this article that details how he helped raise $10,000 to benefit the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver. The Tattered Cover, perhaps my all-time favorite book store, was involved in a lawsuit stemming from its refusal to turn over purchasing records to the Thornton police department. Mr. Snicket, aka Daniel Handler (who happens to play the accordion for one of my favorite bands, the Magnetic Fields), organized a fundraiser in San Francisco to help the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), which was representing the Tattered Cover in the case.

I also just found out that the Tattered Cover won the case three months after the fundraiser. Thank you, Daniel Handler.

Of course, the Tattered Cover case was not a test of the USA PATRIOT Act, section 215 of which authorizes sequestration (“production”) of any “tangible things” including borrowing and purchasing records in support of investigations against terrorism. The Act allows that a magistrate shall enter an “ex parte” order to produce the goods, meaning that there is no opportunity to challenge the subpoena in court. The Act also includes a gag order prohibiting people who receive solicitations for information under the PATRIOT Act from letting anyone know that such material has been requested. It is unclear whether the gag order prohibits consulting legal counsel. As a side note, the Act prohibits the FBI from using the PATRIOT Act “solely” to frustrate activities otherwise protected by the first amendment. Of course, if that’s an unfortunate bi-product of a frivolous investigation, that’s the price we pay for security. And the best part is that anyone so hampered is prohibited from ever talking about it. How did such an Act ever pass?

Recently, the ABFFE, along with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the ACLU filed an expedited request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for information on how many subpoenas have been issued to booksellers under the PATRIOT Act. Despite further requests from the House Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department has refused to release the information. Because of the delay, the ABFFE, ACLU, EPIC and the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Foundation (FRTF) filed suit against the Justice Department last Thursday. I wonder if Lemony Snicket will be able to come to the rescue this time? Here’s hoping someone does…

NP: The Gothic Archies with the Baudelaire Memorial Orchestra, Count Olaf/Scream and Run Away

[From MetaFilter] I want one of these. Anybody out there want to pitch in with me and build one? You: money, engineering, garage, tools, know-how, brawn. Me: enthusiasm, painting, sound effects during dives. Oh, what fun! [More info at Stanley Submarines]

Also, don’t forget—today is Lemony Snicket Day!

NP: Gene, Wasteland