Unrepentant in my absence

This blog could sub for the house in the woods in The Blair Witch Project. Why not? I haven't crossed its threshold in probably more than a year. Cobwebs abound in the high corners near the ceiling. Nature, in all her rude logic, was slowly starting to reclaim this place for her own.

I cannot say that my travels have taken me to exotic destinations -- maybe the theatre. But I come back with my name morphed from the original ruby_maser to movie maven. Somewhere along the way I lost the underscore in my name and picked up an almost exhaustive (and definitely exhausting) knowledge of cinema.

I haven't decided what I'm even doing back here. This settlement is so derelict and in a state of disrepair that it will be a serious challenge to resurrect it from extinction's edge. Oh, well, I'm not really doing anything though.

Here's talking to myself!

Linking and Unlinking...

"Memory, prophesy, and fantasy -- the past, the future, and the dreaming moment in between -- are all one country, living one immortal day. To know that is wisdom. To use it is the Art." -- Clive Barker

In theory that quote applies as I wistfully clean house. The sidebars have been updated a bit. There were several fellow travelers who have departed . Our wayward blogger buddy, Jenzilla, no longer resides at the address she once called home. Though I have occassionally knocked since she pulled stumps for the next stage, it has been to no avail. I hope she is off in that high country. Cock your ear to the wind and you might just hear her far away, singing a rising song.

Even still, a broken link, like the remnant light of an ancient supernova, must finally be extinguished. She will be missed. She may yet return.

Also, http://www.youknowforkids.co.uk/, a site dedicated to the films of the Coen Brothers, has been jettisoned because it was kidding around too much, not standing up straight, and not being punctual when clicked. "You know, for kids!" is a quote from The Hudsucker Proxy, by the way.

It has been replaced by an imminently-capable carbon copy of itself that does the trick nicely of highlighting the Coens' idiosyncratic cinema offerings.

I've added a few blogs that I've trolled through more than once recently: dooce and fafblog. dooce must be read cautiously. For 28-year-old, single men from Texas it is the equivalent of eating fugu, a Japanese delicacy made from a highly poisonous variety of pufferfish. Fugu can accidentally kill if prepared improperly. Master chefs ensure a non-fatal preparation -- bringing new meaning to not f#%king with the people that handle your food.

For dooce, however, the burden lies on the individual. There is no master chef in which to misplace one's trust. Reading Maxim, watching sports, weightlifting, gambling, engaging in substance abuse, or attempting to pull off ill-advised Jackass-inspired stunts of death-defiance: any of these are recommended and considered by experts to be sufficient to avoid emasculation.

Oh, I kid. And to prove it, I recommend everyone check on the French Open which is heating up in its second week. That's right: tennis, anyone? In this bastion of unmitigated machismo that I call home, it is more than mere sacrilege in some circles to admit to such trangressions of male conduct as voluntarily watching tennis. But I enjoy watching it, if only because I played it for eight years and have a working knowledge of the players. Nonetheless, I must continue to look over my shoulder and write fast!

How to resist? Afterall, Nadal is vying to repeat as champion this year. Is he the only viable threat to Federer's claim of all Grand Slams at the same time (not in the same year, though)? I can sense your anticipation, the baited breath with which you await more, but for safety's sake, I must press on.

Back to the other link that I've added, fafblog is an amusing, good time of a read if you like politically-charged social commentary wrapped in psychotropic mayhem and inane, comic book craziosity. Not convinced? Well, I heard that dooce lets her daughter read it! ;)

Moving on, I've also added a link for Freebirds World Burrito. Sorry, folks, it's a Texas thing. Sadly, you are only allowed to drool. Though I'm sure you could start insisting via email that they expand into markets nearer to you. In the meantime, if you so chose, you can place an order online, and I could pick it up, eat it, and tell you what you thought of it. ;)

I'm more of a slave to it than a patron. Thus, I consider this shameless plug to be obligatory.

blue1aqua1, have you ever partaken of their tasty goodness? I know they have them in Austin. Don't say no and break my heart!

On another note, Zero 7 (also featured in the Random Links sidebar) is releasing a new album. Anyone that might be interested in chilled-out, downtempo R&B flavored trip hop might want to check them out. And though the new album, The Garden, sounds worthy from what I've heard, a good place to start is their seminal debut, Simple Things.

Trip hop, of which I am a considerable afficionado, has been on life support for a number of years now in pop form. Though none of the mainstays of the genre could probably count themselves as bonafide mega-stars in the States (most hail from Europe), there have been a number of groups that have loyal followings here.

However, the proliferation of the formula for success that had initially given its formgivers their unique sound and perspective ultimately oversaturated the limited scope of its market. And the moody melancholia of many of its most prolific bands was something of a turn-off to mainstream audiences. It could not be danced to (at least not in any traditional sense), and many professed its content to be gleaned from of gloomy grab bag of menace, anxiety, sullenness, or depression in various undercooked, over-hyped amalgamations of ambition and artifice.

Nevertheless, more accessible acts like Björk and, briefly, Sneaker Pimps enjoyed regular rotation. Dido found success by toeing the fringes of the genre. Air and Zero 7 have both reaped the benefits of more radio-friendly themes and electronica aesthetics, mining the depths of jazz and rhythm & blues respectively. Even the somewhat morose likes of Portishead graced the videography of Mtv for a short time during their debut album.

But I go on. Time to go off. I still have to publish, then spellcheck. I cannot do it in the proper order for some reason. Goodnight, triphoppers.

Save the Internet

Yes, save the internet. It's that dire. I've done my part. Have you? No excuses; they've made it easy.

Please pass the word along and use this link to take you into the heart of the battle to preserve the internet in its current iteration, the most elegant and appropriate model that I can think of.

Here is my letter to my representatives, a rather cheesy appeal to their patriotism if I do say so myself. :p

To whom it may concern:

I daily pray that my representatives possess a greater degree of probity and commitment to upholding democratic principles than their contemporaries. And though I continue to pray that this is the case, it would be imprudent to simply trust to my beliefs at such a pivotal juncture in the history of the Internet. Thus am I required to act.

As I am sure you are aware, legislation is currently being considered that could potentially curtail the so-called "network neutrality" that the Internet was built on and currently enjoys.

Though it seems self-evident to me the irrationality of putting our basic freedoms at the disposal of corporate entities whose first and foremost priorties are not our basic freedoms, it nonetheless bears repeating. And if there be any question that those basic freedoms extend to the domain of the Internet, let me assure you that they do.

I am rarely spurred to action. Numbness, disenchantment, ennui: it can easily seem that these are the sole stock and store of the electorate, of a people just waiting to be inspired.

And while I could easily take this opportunity to vent my frustration at the system that actually makes a restatement of core values or a desperate call to duty necessary at all, I would instead like to point out that you can prove me wrong. In fact, I challenge you to do so. Please act immediately to save the Internet.

In closing, I would like to leave it to those that have said it better:

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." -- Abraham Lincoln

Happy Hurricane Season!

"I am El Niño! All other tropical storms must bow before El Niño! Yo soy El Niño! And for those you don't habla español, El Nino is spanish for... The Niño!" -- Chris Farley, a.k.a. professional wrestler El Niño

Yeah, the quote's not really about hurricanes. So, sue me! Chris Farley was one funny guy. I miss his physical comedy, but if there is anyone that could supersede him, it's this guy, and this movie may very well be the movie. Be looking for it.

Anyway... Phew! I'm back! Thank you, ladies, for rescuing me from the "forever on and off ramps of Houston". I like that. It makes it sound like the Twilight Zone or something. Whereas in the tale of the hitchhiker the protagonist is menaced by just that eponymous stranger while she is on a cross-country roadtrip, I, on the other hand, sit at a standstill in unholy traffic jams, all the while being repeatedly lapped by the same old lady with a walker! Aaaahhhh!!!

You might be interested to know that I'm pondering a move closer to the heart of the city, closer to my job, and just in time for hurricane season, no less. I may flinch at category 5's, but I'm terrified of that old lady with the walker. And I don't want to commute anymore. But, in case you were not privy to the details of last year's faux-hurricane evacuation, you should know that I may be shooting myself in the foot.

Last year, not long after hurricane Katrina "swept down like an angel of God" (Adaptation., 2002), hurricane Rita puttered into town with her no-account, hung-over self all droopy-eyed and used up from lack of self-respect and too many one-night stands. She'd blown her wad on the way in from the Gulf, been downgraded to a category 3, and had veered to the right at the last second. Poor, undeserving southeast Texas became her primary target, and it was there that she was at her fiercest. (Some of my family rode out the brunt of the storm from there.)

Unfortunately, she failed to veer right before she inadvertently tipped off one of the biggest mass exoduses in American history. God, was it horrendous. I did partake in it, against my will, and I can tell you that humanity was threadbare in those desperate hours.

I will go into more detail in a moment but, first... the point! I have lived on the northside of Houston as a pseudo-suburbanite for quite some time. I have sneered at the city to our south, cast aspersions, farted in her general direction. Now, dare I venture into its congested heart to live among the philistines? ...Why not!? :)

Nevertheless, during Rita (and all subsequent hurricanes, I'll wager), northside equaled good. Why? Less distance to travel to get to higher ground, or in an every-man-for-himself type state of emergency such as that one, less people to wade through. You see, the freeways became "slaveways" where progress was measured in inches. Travel was only further stymied by the multitude of poor bastards literally running out of gas at ever turn.

Hurricane Rita may have only blown out a few windows around Houston, but it blew holes in any supposed evacuation strategy this city allegedly had. And had Rita hit us full on, I don't want to think about how catastrophic it could have been.

I like to think that the good will out, so to speak, but one wonders, when things get dicey, when might that other shoe fall. Like I said, humanity was threadbare out there.

Traveling on my own personal, hellacious voyage out, I saw many unsettling sights illuminating the cracks in civilization. Notably, I witnessed ambulances and EMTs ferrying defibrillators to elderly and infirmed passengers who were no doubt distraught near death at the prospect and helplessness of being stranded in a sea of humanity while a potential natural disaster bore down on them.

There was one guy, foolhardy and adventurous as he might have been for trying to carve his own road out of our collective predicament -- he was busy having to single-handedly attempt to free his car from where it had bottomed out and become lodged on a small, muddy rise in the ground. He had failed to make it through a ditch while trying to get to some alternate route and had subsequently gotten himself hopeless stuck there. And everyone else just rolled on by.

I was able to get a glimpse of a rarity when the powers that be opened up the southbound lanes of Highway 45 to northbound traffic. Sitting in gridlock in the true northbound lanes, I was able to run the full gamut of emotions from dejected at not being one of the lucky ones streaming comfortably northward to joy that at least some people were spared from our plight to despair from, at length, seeing the southbound lanes suffer the same fate as ours as they finally ground to a halt.

In the Woodlands, just north of Houston, I witnessed parents and their children who, for want of fuel, were lounging idly in the ditches alongside their once-proud vehicles, as if waiting for Woodstock to come to town, not the Apocalypse.

Yet, the dread I felt at what might happen to these unfortunate souls, what might set off the powder keg that this situation was, seemed all for naught. Where was the panic? Why weren't they running riot and bum-rushing the halting progress the rest of us were making. They could have demanded gas, pleaded for safe passage, stolen our hubcaps? But they didn't.

Maybe panic mode seemed a more appropriate modus operandi than the incongruous serenity we found ourselves in the midst of. Even anger might have seemed plausible -- maybe not justified, but plausible if only for those looking for someone to blame. No, if uncertainty was the order of the day, most people seemed prepared to swallow it whole. And the only thing that was apparent in their seemingly passive acceptance of the situation was a strange sort of serenity, an inexplicable calm.

We made it to our destination... barely. How many people can say they've been inside a trailer, syphoning gasoline out of a motorcycle with a turkey baster at 2 a.m. while a parent stood watch with a handgun?!

Yeah, I saw a heck of a lot during that ordeal, but no hitchhikers. Hmm, I wonder why that could be? :p

It was a grand adventure I'd like to never repeat. So, at last, we come to it. By moving closer to that roiling, unpredictable Gulf of Mexico, even just twenty minutes closer, seems like tempting my luck. All I can say under the circumstances is "Happy Hurricane Season!" One more go-round.

To sum it all up, the Coen brothers probably said it best in their classic Blood Simple:

"The world is full of complainers. But the fact is, nothing comes with a guarantee. I don't care if you're the Pope of Rome, President of the United States, or even Man of the Year -- something can always go wrong. And go ahead, complain, tell your problems to your neighbor, ask for help--watch him fly. Now in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else -- that's the theory anyway. But what I know about is Texas... And down here... you're on your own." -- M. Emmet Walsh

HOV equals... (drum roll)

Sorry, I won't tell. That would be cheating. :p

Actually, if you haven't found out by now, HOV lane means High-Occupancy Vehicle lane -- a fancy-shmancy way of saying carpool lane basically. I'm glad to hear you had a good trip to Texas, Annex, and a road trip at that -- no better way to see as much as possible of a state this size. I'll check out your site next; I'm sure there will be plenty of great pics.

You got me thinking of places I might like to go one of these days.

A road trip might do me good too. Don't get me wrong -- I'm at home at home -- but it would be nice for me to get away from the HOV lanes for awhile. Vegas wasn't much of a getaway from the big city. Afterall, we never left the city. Hell, we never the casinoes! There is some shame to be had in missing out on experiencing the Nevada terrain. Hang your head, ruby! ;)

I always thought I might like to go out west to Arizona or New Mexico and just bum around the desert for a few days, clear my head. There is an austere beauty out there that I dig. It's like a vast emptiness, but in a very good way. The expanses seem to make for almost a spiritual connection between the sky and the land.

I would love to go out there and check out some monumental land art that I'm keen on. A renowned light artist, James Turrell, has been constructing a naked-eye observatory there for years now out of an extinct cinder volcano, Roden Crater. The link might only pique your interest. No more info has come out of that splash screen for years literally. It's like the Wonka chocolate factory of the southwest. I feel like little Charlie Bucket: "But Grandpa, someone must be helping Mr. Turrell work the crater." Grandpa: "Thousands must be helping him."

Turrell really invokes the power of light. You can view some of his images on the web. They seem to tap into a primitive power and collective unconcious that connects us all to our very begins. He contributed a "skyspace" to a Quaker meeting house in the Houston area as well. I've actually had a chance to experience this one, a very meditative space though the website shows nothing of the actual installation.

There is also Walter De Maria's Lighting Field. It's an enormous grid-like array of lighting rods erected in southwest New Mexico. Viewing them in actions seems to be as much an act of God and nature as good timing on the visitor's part. I think you have to schedule in advance and have the schedule coincide with a thunderstorm to be so lucky as to experience the full effect. However, their website does contain the rather cryptic qualifier, "It is important to note that as a work of art, The Lightning Field does not depend upon the occurrence of lightning but responds to many more subtle conditions of its environment." Hmm, maybe they know something we don't, or maybe they've resorted to mechanical means to get the buzz going, so to speak. Still, I'd love to view it one day.

And then there is the Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson, the only caveat being that it's in Utah of all places. I might have to be accompanied by two wives to actually view it! Oh, I kid. The name pretty much says it all. It's a large man-made jetty that spirals in on itself to a foregone conclusion.

I guess I've always liked that idea of art the can be experienced across the fourth dimension, Time. Artistically speaking, it is the best way, I think, to incorporate Change, one of the overarcing constants of the human experience. This type of art must respond to and co-exist with it's environment. It cannot be sheltered from it nor is it impervious to the ravages of time. Also, land art has a monumentality to its scale that can make the individual shed the world-weariness and stolidity of adulthood and re-acquaint ourselves with a childlike sense of smallness and wonder. It's something we lose if we don't view things that transcend our human scale.

But I feel I've gone off on a tangent. The Nazca lines in Peru are another example of this type of art. And though we might probably be less apt to actually call him a land artist, Richard Serra's massive steel sculptures are another of those that I feel allow the viewer to participate in the childlike act of discovery and exploration.

----

As a sidenote: In the last week I've been in a wreck, worked 32 hours worth of overtime, and caught a nasty stomach bug and/or ate something untoward that has given my tummy untold grief for the past two days. So, there :p

You might say I've had a bit of a "stomachache". Someone I once knew would have said that. Except that he didn't pronounce it as in "stomach-ache" as it should be. When he read it for presumably the first time, it came out "Sto-ma-cha-chi". As in... !!!??? :)

Atlanta? ...more like Mylanta

Who was it that said you have to be "better off in a pine box on a slow train bound for Georgia"? I took a plane and got there in under two hours... and alive!

Picture it: my very first business trip, me in a suit, buttoned-down and het up, fingernails dug an inch deep into the roof of the fuselage and hanging on for dear life until... I fell asleep. How very narcoleptic of me. Disrespectful, too. Insolence in the face of eminent death is usually punishable, surprisingly, by a long and uneventful life. :p

Getting on the plane and just going must be getting too stale and boring these days, and it wouldn't be dramatic enough to have just delayed the flight. The gimmick is to zip that sardine can up, gas up, and get us in the hotseat before packing it in like a belated April Fool's Day sucker punch. Yes, indeed, we were on the tarmac before we got the go code to turn our asses around and go home. Seems there was a storm a-brewing in Atlanta, and rather than keep us pent up on the plane indefinitely, they allowed us to offload into the terminal indefinitely.

Another associate accompanied me on the trip. Upon being delayed ("groundstopped" in industry jargon), he phoned his wife, and she was able to relay the conditions at Atlanta's airport. I remember hearing something to the affect of "nickel-sized hail". I felt like Dirty Harry when I scoffed, "It's only nickel-sized." :D

I was up at 3 a.m., and the plane was due to depart at six on the nose. Punctuality, in a legal sense, is evidently solely the obligation of the ticket holder and not necessarily reciprocated (as you'll see a little further down) . Under the circumstances, leaving two and half hours late seemed like sweet charity compared to, ironically, being held hostage by the airline itself.

Back on the plane after being shat out at the terminal, we finally departed. As we taxied onto the runway, I was happy to inform the flight attendant that the carry-on bag beside me had misplaced it's owner, a kindly African-American allergy-case of an older lady who disembarked roughshod like the rest of us and was last seen sneezing, hacking, and futilely hailing some unidentified airplane down the length of an unidentified runway on an unidentified major news channel. Man, she was fast. ;) I can just see their reasoning from the last paragraph: you can wait for us but we sure as shit ain't waiting for you. I only hope her and the bag she sent ahead to scout out the situation were finally reunited.

We arrived to little, er... make that no fanfare save the gymnastics of my stomach turning somersaults in disapproval of my hyperbolic flight-mode demeanor. In fairness to me, it was like old-hat on the return flight and me doing the crossword puzzle the whole way in Continental's in-flight magazine. But getting there was a bitch, and it elicited my titular observation as I was en route to the jobsite: "Atlanta? ...more like Mylanta."

The delay itself only lasted long enough to push my return flight back by 20 hours. I had actually been instructed to return to Planet Houston the very same day, but Mother Nature can be a mother... nature, I guess. No matter. My co-worker was slated to stay the night anyway. As long as I didn't mind wearing the same suit two days in a row, we were able to negotiate a hotel room with two beds. (I tried to talk him out it, but you know, he's married. Aren't they all? :p )

The hotel itself was pricey and billable to the client, methinks. Yeah! I'm not gonna name names, but this was no normal hotel. It wasn't the Waldorf-Astoria, but beggers can't be choosers, you know. I guess providing architectural services for lawyers has it perks -- pitfalls, too, perhaps.

Our only outing into the city itself came that night when we wandered down the street to a middle-of-the-road steakhouse and grill. It made a decent oak-grilled steak that it was passing off for prime rib. Very tricky and tasty at the same time.

We were both beat from hoofing it all day, and though I like the nightlife, I can't divulge this to people who can divulge this to people, if you know what I mean. We settled for returning to the one-room penthouse and crashing out. We still had several hours of work to wake up for anyhow and a three o'clock plane flight to catch back to the Bayou City.

I can delve further into the excruciating minutia upon request. Let me know if you've ever been to the state and what you thought. I personally liked what little I got to see. From my co-workers assessment, the best peaches he's ever tasted came from right across the border from Georgia. Ouch! How'd we ever get out of there alive. ;)

Too many things, too many things, too many things...

The title comes from Boogie Nights. But it is fitting for other reasons. I've always thought my problem was my inability to focus my creative energies. I play guitar, I write poetry, I'm working on the genesis of a short film I hope to make this summer, infrequently I host a blog... Let's not forget about the touch under fifty hours I work every week... and the sleep I get and the sleep I forsake. The wife and kids are starting to feel neglected. (Oh, I kid. I'm unmarried and childless.)

Is it any wonder my promise to revamp the visuals on this site has fallen flat? No. I want very much to learn the language of web design... but I've wanted to learn Spanish for years tambien. ;) There are probably bilingual web-designers out there that are laughing at my linguistic and blogistic shortcomings.

In a digital sense, I pranced around much like the President would at an election rally in the heartland. My sleeves were rolled up. I didn't roll them up myself. But I could have, and you would so not know the difference. I spoke in grandiose terms, broad brushstrokes, well-rehearsed, far-flung notions with no conceiveable means to implement them in practical terms. Then I shoveled half a shovelful of dirt, planted one tree that was conveniently placed just beside the mostly-dug hole, and then waited for the applause. I then yelled, "Handoff!" and playfully threw the shovel to some poor sap who wasn't prepared to catch it. He looked foolish. I tried to ad lib the awkwardness away. It didn't work. I helped him tidy himself up, patted him on the back, and confided that my bulletproof vest was giving me a rash. He seemed to sympathize, but I suspected his sincerity. I whispered to my security personnel to have him detained for being disingenuous, cursed him for probably having voted for the other guy, and left hastily to get away from all the tree-huggers. Later, in shocking abuse of my authority, that evening I ordered a detachment of my best fighter bombers to carpet-bomb several acres of virgin rainforest.

You see? That's what happens when you've got too much on your plate. I need a vacation. Better yet, two vacations. :p

Imagine for a moment, planning a vacation to some remote, exotic destination for one week. Afterwards, instead of returning to the grind, you simply fly to some other remote, exotic destination and stay there a week. If that couldn't get you out of the workaday tedium, I don't know what would... except for maybe having a detachment of your best fighter bombers carpet-bomb some virgin rainforest. Seriously, you should try it. ;)

vegas_maser

Greetings. [Font deliberately not sized down ;) ]

Richard Pryor once said something to the affect of wanting to strip naked, run through a casino, jump on a table, and yell "Blackjack!" I couldn't agree more.

I just returned to the hell of living from a sin-free three-day trip to Sin City. I sweated out a 3 hour plane flight to get there (I'm edgy when cooped up in a barely subsonic tin can) and was rewarded with a mere 2 hour plane flight back due to favorable winds.

For those who have never been, I recommend the trip if albeit a longer one so as to experience more of the libertine atmosphere. It's "a place where the beer flows like wine." I would have much preferred to ride into town half-twisted on acid like my hero Raul Duke (a.k.a. Hunter S. Thompson) did so many years ago. Unfortunately, I had to settle for riding a screaming, winged torpedo, half-twisted from cabin fever and high anxiety.

Of course, I did not come, as the sportive sorts do, to dip my, er, big toe into the debauchery of legalized prostitution. I came, as the betting sorts do, to gamble away my plane ticket home if necessary. I'd love to say it had to happen and, in so doing, indulge my delusion that I can be totally depraved when I want to be, but I didn't lose my ticket home. :(

When I think about it, a good story is worth more than what my conservative poker habits failed to successfully defend from the other dissolute persons. Maybe I should have gone for the ace and thrown caution to the wind. Afterall, I didn't win anything after some 24 cumulative hours of poker, and I could only manage to lose $150. That's lukewarm drama. On the other hand, if I had lost my ass with some style, that would have been a grand tale.

My worst beat at the hold 'em tables involved me handing over about $120 dollars to a guy on one hand that went terribly wrong. I had pocket aces. He had pocket kings. Going all in didn't scare him away, and in the melee of cards that insued, he got another king. And lucky for him that he did too, considering that the 2 remaining kings were his only legitimate outs in the entire deck. In the meantime, I played it right and still lost. :p

A buddy of mine, Carmine (not his real name, btw), was the only companion on the trip and against the wishes of his girlfriend at that. Oops! She wanted to go and suddenly couldn't. He still could go, and I was the next best thing. The one caveat was the lack of, ahem... perks and how demanding I am (i.e. demanding my own bed for the duration of our stay).

We can't say he didn't try to rationalize it with her, but the ol' "it's a different kinda trip, honey" approach didn't quite cut it. By that I mean, if he and I go, it's a gambling trip; if she and he go, it's a sight-seeing / romantic get-away. To no avail. Apparently there are just too many distractions in that mecca of misbehavior to trust a couple of guys like us -- meaning two socially-inept poker nerds.

He actually was up about five hundred dollars at one point. However, free scotch can be a bitch.

While I was there, I actually had the opportunity to go to dinner with my uncle and aunt, the Alaskans. They're a fun-lovin' bunch, full of beans, slots players. I hung out with them for a while in Caesar's Palace while Carmine continued to swill scotch and watch his poker fortunes nose-dive. Benecio del Toro's rapid-fire gambling montage in Snatch comes to mind, if anyone were in need of an appropriate visual.

Other pop-references that might make light of our ham-handed antics in Vegas include (but are not limited to) Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn's short-lived stint disguised as highrollers at the beginning of Swingers and Mike Myers' shabby attempt to be an inconspicuous blackjack player on the hunt for Robert Wagner's Virtucon executive in the original and hands-down the best Austin Powers incarnation.

And in Fantasia-fashion, we'll end our version of A Night on Bald Mountain with a sublime segue into Ave Maria -- that age-old struggle between the profane and the sacred as it was brilliantly illustrated by the triumph of light over darkness and transitioning from the demons and ghouls of midnight, the worship service of Baal, to the sober procession of the faithful set to the strains of a heavenly choir. If you look closely, we're in that procession. No, really! I'm third from the right! Hey... I'm serious. :p

A 2 hour plane flight is a very short time to transform from the dashing, dangerous ruby_maser to mild-mannered stooge for the architecture racket. Anyway, I managed :(

And, ladies, pink hardhats are so very possible. You may be surprised in the near future. ;)

Logo Contest...

It's a time-consuming prospect to go about building a webpage from scratch with no prior knowledge of html, web hosting, etc. Nevertheless, the construction continues uninterrupted.

Here are various designs I've come up with for a logo. I like them all really, but if you wander in from the world-wide web and would like to cast a vote for one in particular, please feel free.

None of them are really done, but I can't keep going tonight. I'd still want to go back and clean them up some more though, tweak them just a bit.

Until next time... hardhats, people! :p

Construction Update...

I'm spending spare time learning Dreamweaver 8, a great little piece of software for web design. I've also managed to find a site that hosts free step-by-step tutorials, nine hours worth of free tutorials (!), for novices like myself.

If all goes well, I hope to completely overall the look of the blog. A more professional look might not grow the audience, but it will certainly inspire more interest from myself.

Blogger's free templates don't provide the kind of eye-catching style I'd like. Nor do they have the intuitive interface and flexibility to guide the would-be designer through the process of overhauling the templates they provide. No matter. A little Photoshop combined with a nine-hour Dreamweaver clinic could go a long way to doing them one better in that respect.

It may be all for naught really. Afterall, we are talking about window-dressing. Until this blog begins to address the fundamental question of what it's purpose is, there will be unresolved readership issues. Providing content on a regular basis would be a good start though :D

The construction goes on...

Insert Work Zone Cliche Here...

FYI: Point totals double if you take out the sign and the construction worker. The fines may more than double, but only if they catch you. :D

Yes, I have returned to the blogosphere. My new year's resolutions typically don't kick in until February, so technically I'm ahead of the game. But since no one is reading this anyway, it doesn't matter in the slightest.

Nonetheless, if you wander in off the information superhighway, I have implemented a construction zone and speed control devices to insure I am not slain outright as I try to revamp this blog. I now have the tools in place-- maybe not the talent -- but the tools are there to begin giving this delapidated backroad a new concrete facelift.

Maybe we can look into some wide lanes a la Kramer's adopt-a-highway episode from Seinfeld. We won't actually fix the potholes, but we may try to make the at regular intervals so that you achieve some sort of pleasant uptempo beat from running over them. You get the point. It'll be heaven... from hell's perspective.

Glowing praise, I know...

[edit: Don't be alarmed if the place seems a little dishevelled or color schemes seem nauseating. I'll be experimenting until I get a good grasp of the CSS codes, etc.]

Work from Hell, Manna from Heaven, Me in the Middle

Most people probably post and go. Stream of conscious and fuck all. Those people might have never used and/or be amazed to find out about the "Save as Draft" feature for Blogger. I have used it not infrequently when I have run out of steam mid-post or have been forced off of it by work-related bs.

Anyway, I returned today to discover that there was a half-finished post in the queue that I had simply forgotten about, and this one was bad. I will now attempt to paraphrase it for you here, because I have no reason to ever let it see the light.

In my defense, I like to jerk the reader around a bit; it gets a reaction in a way that straight-forward, primetime police drama factual accounting can't do. And seeing as how last week was a bit of a downer (too much work, too little free time, just grinding it out), I wanted to create a post that was going to play with the notion of being in a rut by going completely off the deep end and creating a fantasy sequence in which I describe the titillating build-up to a intimate encounter with a significant other (i.e. the girlfriend I don't have). Here goes...
-
[paraphrase on]
I wake up from fitful dreams, presumably nightmares about the aforementioned work-related bs, and collect myself slowly in the neon blue of the urban midnight. Still drowsy, I become mindful of her presence beside me on the bed, and I take comfort in her nearness and our shared loved for one another. Perhaps, it might even have been her who called me back from that dreaded dream, and if not for her, could ever have I returned on my own? I can imagine her rebuke with its casual tenderness, something that speaks volumes about the depth of the relationship between us.

Thankful for her proximity in the long insomniac burn of the night bedded down in the fabric of the urban jungle, I am but a moth to her flame. I roll over and kiss her gently on the neck. To which she feigns anger ands recoils ever so slightly in a half-hearted attempt to regain her sleep.

Only, it would not be her but my friggin' computer monitor instead! Naturally, I'm stunned, but get this: it's all into it -- the tried and true nightmare sequence that seems to end, only to begin anew at the last gasp. And in true horror movie fashion, cut to where I wake up screaming, and start to question my own sanity.
[paraphrase off]

The premise was good, but something about the post itself didn't make the cut. In an ironic twist though, the only difference between last week and this week is that the workload has ebbed somewhat.

_____________________

Also, I came across a site today that found a gimmick for itself that seemed to be working pretty nicely. All I can say is that it was a link through a link that was on blue1aqua1's site. This one's abusing HFT in a way that makes me love that good ol' entrepreneurial spirit! Participants should be coaxed or cautioned, depending on where you stand on this sort of tribute/exploitation.

I report on this in a state of ambivalence. It is both distasteful to my high-minded ideals and a sinful indulgence to my love of the fairer sex. In other words, I'm going back.. but I am very upset about it! :D

_____________________

I may try to do something similar, along the lines of posting a random pic from the internet on a weekly basis. I doubt I'll be tapping into anything so primal as to rival blognhotties in popularity, but it might nevertheless be a better draw to this site than an aimless post every week and a half seems to be :p

Comma Sympathizer

I'm a movie nut. I love movies just like Dont loves her movies (nice site, btw... I'm glad to see you liked Gerry). Anyway, I have touched on the flick Shattered Glass once before near the very beginning of my blog's birth. Today [edit: today = last friday, see below for more info] I started thinking about it again for random reasons.

In the film, there is a scene that meanders away from the crux of the movie to have a dalliance in the (I suspect) factual idiosyncracies of journalistic routine, an aside only an editor could probably fully appreciate. I am reminded of a scene in which Hank Azaria's character (the voice of Moe and Apu from The Simpsons, incidentally) returns to the office to find the magazine's staff all being subjected to proofing articles in some form of geek punishment designed to make them better understand the scourge that is "comma abuse". The punishment in question involved them actually being made to read through finished pieces and highlight all the commas.

Apparently, this is a noteworthy epidemic in the journalistic community, or at least noteworthy enough to parody in the film. Don't get me wrong. The scene served its purpose as part of the forward momentum of the script; for that, I probably shouldn't have referred to it as a "dalliance". It was, afterall, a facilitator for a rift to arise between Azaria's character (the editor for the paper) and his boss. The fallout from which would ultimately wind up with Azaria being fired from his post and replaced with a less than unanimously loved staffer played by Peter Sarsgaard (good actor).

Even though I haven't seen the film in a probably five months, I return to the humor of that scene, subdued as it may have been, because if reminds me of the way that I write. I have always strived for a strong vocabulary and writing skills that are above reproach, and I am probably being self-conscious about this... Well, I'll just put it to you plainly: do, I, abuse, commas?

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:
editor_maser: Looks good. Needs more commas though!! And what's with the date for your post? That was a week ago. It couldn't have taken you that long to write this post?! How much are we paying you?! Get your pinko comma-lovin' ass out of my office!!

Feel free to comment on my grammatical idiosyncracies. I'll go first: My sentences are longer than my... They're long. (hat-tip to Ocean's Eleven for that one) :p

ruby's price war & the narcissism of minor differences

This post is not affiliated in any way with Annex's "What's in a name?" post. It may even predate it since I write so slowly. However, the irony of how they coincide is not lost on me, especially since they both relate to personal identity.

Anyway, I was trolling around the BBC the other day, just window-shopping for anything that might be interesting to read. One good aspect of their website is that it not only focuses on the current events of the day, the staff there are constantly analyzing and going in depth and writing editorials that try to unlock and better understand the nature of systems, the state of the world, the heart of the issue, whatever. In other words, there is a long view to complement your daily dose of here today, gone tomorrow headlines.

So, I happened upon an article that was wading neck deep into the long-standing rift between the French and the British (or, in a larger sense, all things Anglo). It contained a reference to Freud and a theory that he espoused -- "the narcissism of minor differences".

Basically, the article was stating that the petty bickering of today can be attributed to an over-abundance of similitude between their peoples and a dearth of significant differences. When you consider their long and tumultuous past, nationalistic pride, geographic proximity, differing social models, and a seething underbelly of derision in the limp motions of politesse that characterize much of their political wrangling, is it any wonder that such a fine sibling rivalry exists?

Well, it got me thinking about my own "narcissism of minor differences". [ruby sits preening in front of the mirror] I have occassionally done a Google search to see if I rated highly enough to warrant a place at the table. Having done so, I can say that I am not the only rude logic in the world. There is another, an ominous presence buried deep in server banks of the world wide web. A glitch in the Matrix?

This rude logic isn't even built yet. It's just a splash screen propositioning wayward internet travelers like a streetcorner hustler with a penchant for pseudo-philosophical advertising slogans. It poses one of the most mysterious and cryptic questions of the ages, "What is rude logic?" ...It's me, asshole! There. I said it. I don't know anything ruder than calling another person (or dot com entity) an asshole. Under the circumstances, I think they deserve an apology, but here at rudelogic.blogspot.com, they ain't gonna get it!

If they are selling something a la the "dot com" in their name, shouldn't it be rude "product" and how would that work anyway? Customer service demands decorum, finesse, and a willingness to supplicate yourself at the feet of the almighty dollar. I mean, logically speaking, you are shamelessly trying to entice people to return and discover what the big secret is. As you butter up the public and they wait with baited breath to discover the secret, the glamorous hidden message is revealed: "'Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.' A crumby commercial!?" :p

You can't sell toilet seat covers with guerilla advertising like that -- it's not artistic! But, if not, what could it be? While "rude" really is programming jargon that could easily be the missing piece of the puzzle or another deadend, couldn't it also be a hint of a fantastic undiscovered sub-layer driving the mechanisms and inner workings of the whole system, a new calculator that insults you for not knowing the answers on your own, a tedious self-help book for novice and professional jerks alike, a new type of mace specifically designed to be an affordable first-strike weapon against pedantic know-it-alls and uncharismatic midgets?

For my part, I can see only one alternative to a lawsuit, only one option that insures the survival of my brand (I'm playing the role of the French here), and that option is PRICE WAR!!! So, guess what... I'm not selling it! I'm not even asking for charitable offerings or shipping and handling charges. I'm giving it away! That's right, folks. I'm giving rude logic away for absolutely nothing. You heard right. Free! Free! FREEEEEEE!!! Buy one rude logic at the regular price of free, get a second rude logic at half off the regular price of free! All while supplies last, of course ;)

I can only hope that they do not have lawyers on staff or, worse yet, French lawyers. [scared face] Is it too late to change my site name to rude "blog"ic? :D

Just a quicky...

I have followed Annex's lead and turned on word verification in the comments section. I love to thwart the spam bastards any way I can. Please forgive the inconvenience while I do so.

Another item, long overdue by the way, the Blog-Hoppers' Portal has been revamped. Some old links have been removed and some blogger babes have been added. It will continue to grow and expand in the near future.

Lastly, for anyone who might be just about ready to punch Rob Thomas square in the face for repeatedly belting out "Bright Lights" when you visit, you should know that I put him up to it. He'll be coming out very shortly, to be replaced by some other random bastard you'll be ready to smack before too long. :p

Adios for now.

hey pig piggy pig pig pig

Linked from blue's site with a little Nine Inch Nails thrown in for you, Annex. Here is my attempt to draw a pig while I'm pissing away spare time after work today.

I'll leave it for you to decide. He's either one cool pig or he's blind. Since I didn't draw him with a walker, I like to think he's the former of the two.

As backstory, he is currently en route to the slaughterhouse, but he does not know it. I'm not sure what his motivation is, but to explain the sunglasses, perhaps instead of blindness he suffers from blind optimism. He's a pig after my own heart. :p

As for me, the draw-a-swine test revealed me to be a realist who is active, innovative, forgetful of dates, not family-oriented, emotional, naive, care little for details, a risk-taker, secure, stubborn, stick to my ideals, passable listener with a medium quality sex-life.

I agree with some of what the pig said, and the other answers... well, they are the reason he is on his way to the slaughterhouse.

Take the test yourself, bacon-lovers. Hat-tip to blue1aqua1 for the link.

who the heck?

[shame-faced]

I feel in need of a spanking for what I've done, ladies. No, really, damnit! Give me a spanking! :p

I'm sorry to have gone on hiatus so abruptly without a word of warning, not so much as a sign of parting to mark the interim. I assure you that my momma didn't raise me that way. I couldn't go into a bar in Texas, tell this story, and leave with all my teeth. They ride people out of town on a rail for less provocation! A backwoods posse is after me as we speak! :p All right... enough with the hyperbolics.

And though it feels good to have returned to the roost, so to speak, seeing the amassed comments from you, my blogger ladies, notwithstanding a few soon-to-be-swatted spammer flies, rekindled in me the tender flame of propriety, of what is right. Like dead letters that the postal services could not deliver, they seemed so sad. How could I ignore that?

I mean, logically speaking, I am rude... but this is ridiculous! And now I stand before you, a wanderer harried for years... uh, weeks on end (hat-tip to the Coen Brothers), a searcher ever-seeking for that mythic connection to everything and everyone and yet inexplicably disconnecting for some six weeks hence. Go figure.

In answer to some of the speculation, yes, the job has been intensive. People who work sixty hours a week might be offended by that statement, but allow me to explain. I mean, I was on part time hours for a while before this job came along. This is more than a twofold increase in time logged breaking my ass for the man. (And not a twofold increase in pay, btw)

Nevertheless, the job did not win! I would be a dry well at a desert crossroads if I did not wake up to life beyond the distractions bound up it the bludgeoning realities of eeking out a living. That is what I'll take from it all and feel fortunate to have returned. That you are here also is simply the best part.

And yet it grows nigh unto the witching hour about now. I need to close out for the night with a solemn vow to actually come back tomorrow and repay your fidelity in kind with a long-overdue visit of my own to your domains and, maybe, just maybe, if you're lucky... a comment ;)

I kid. I'd be skinned for anything less and rightly so. Thanks for coaxing me back, blue and Annex. :) If Jen is out there among the English, I hope she is well in her travels, too.

Wildlife Documentary: The Rhino and the Cheetah

A return trip from across state lines is never quite as interesting unless you are committing a felony that incorporates verbage to the contrary (i.e. trafficking illicit cargo whether that be humans, drugs, firearms etc. Use you imagination.) You know -- don't cross state lines unless you have clean underwear. That's why I packed for the one night stayover. :p

Well, suffice to say, we hadn't done anything they could do us for when we re-entered Texan airspace. However, if you do find yourself on the business end of the criminal justice system for transporting [insert your poison of choice here] across state lines, never fear that hard-nosed hardass that has been allotted to "judge" you. Just remember that Johnny Depp said it best in Blow as your friendly neighborhood cocaine and marijuana trafficker, George Jung.

He said: "Well, in all honesty, I don't feel what I've done is a crime. And I think it's illogical and irresponsible for you to sentence me to prison. Because, when you think about it, what did I do? I crossed an imaginary line with a bunch of plants." He goes on to cite Bob Dylan as a source for his live-and-let-live philosophy. Of course, he still went to jail, but he looked good doing it. Anyway, I digress.

So, we arrived back in Houston to find the citizenry as ill-tempered and itchy-trigger-fingered as before we left. I say that, but you know, most of us are just trying to make it through the day. You see, it's the vehicles. They turn us into enemies, set us against one another, and then they give us a license to drive the damned things.

My casino campanion ducked down sidestreets when we entered the vicinity of his house. No point trying to be brave and stay on the congested major arteries of this pulsating behemoth we call home. Best to go the backroads and live to fight another day. Little did we know that it is those same lawless backroads of Houston that once in awhile yield the most interesting wildlife interactions, and I don't mean the cutesy tableaus of puppy dogs and kittycats sacked out asleep together in a barn loft somewhere -- not in the Houston grid anyway.

No, we wandered into a Mexican stand-off of sorts between a bewildered conscientious objector and an irate object of objection that must have been just begging for a reality show to come along and "discover" her. I mean, you don't go provoking rattlesnakes or calling them spineless (they have a spine, btw). Apparently, you shouldn't provoke ladies who drive red Corvettes either. It's not the car, per se. It is, in fact, the car's brightly-colored plummage that screams a warning to all potential adversaries that this mean machine is not to be f-ed with.

Of course, even the most erudite of wildlife experts could misinterpret one species for another. We can go back to snakes again for an analogy about coral snakes versus scarlet snakes. The only way that I'd survive that misunderstanding would not involve years of formal training. Rather, it would be because I remember the childhood limerick "Red by yellow, kill a fellow. Red by black, friend to Jack." Meanwhile, the guy with the degree is desperately trying to suck poison from his own ass before the onset of death.

Anyway, the stand-off began like this: We pulled up at a four-way stop. To our left was a van (forever after to be referred to as "Rhino"). In front of us was the infamous red Corvette (forever after to be referred to as "Cheetah"). My eye witness account will have to exclude testimony about who stopped first. I didn't see it. All I know is that the Cheetah wanted to turn and proceed in the direction that the Rhino was heading (the Rhino was to our left).

I was distracted, not paying attention. My casino chauffeur/buddy knew that he was last in the queue and so we waited. I looked up to see that the Cheetah had begun its turn at the exact same time that the lady driving the Rhino decided she had the right-of-way and started straight. (If indeed they did stop at the same time, she did have the right-of-way, btw.) They both came to an abrupt halt when they realized the other's intentions. For a tense moment, both were at stand still, arranged in such a way that the Cheetah was mid-way through it's turn and the Rhino would have collided with it if the Rhino had chosen to continue on its merry way as opposed to having stopped.

After hestitating briefly to ascertain the situation, the Cheetah took the intiative and, with cheetah-like reflexes that only a cheetah could possess, accelerated away from this dinosaur of the modern age. The Rhino responded with incredulity to the perceived slight. It let forth a spirited roar, a defiant challenge to the shabby treatment afforded it by this lesser creature of the wilderness (i.e. it honked its horn at her). Do not be fooled though, ye intrepid explorers, by the diminutive stature of this Cheetah in respect to the Rhino. (At this point, I'm gonna hand off to our field correspondent, ruby_commentator, for a firsthand account.)

[snotty wildlife programming voice-over on]
Note the upturned middle finger of Cheetah in response to Rhino's reproach. Remarkable! I think the female is indicating a readiness to mate! But then again, perhaps we are seeing an alternate, implied meaning in her gesture. Wait a second! The Cheetah has pulled over. A woman is exitting the vehicle. It appears that she has chosen to stand and fight rather than flee. She has now raised her arms in an bold, expansive display; indeed, this aggressive posturing is meant to make her size appear more impressive and intimidating to this would-be predator.
[snotty wildlife programming voice-over off]

Yes, she flipped Rhino lady off. Then, in defiance, she decided to exercise her right to free assembly in the middle of the road.

Remind me who the "would-be" attacker is again? Oh, that's right. It's a van. This presents an interesting set of options to the van/Rhino driver. I can only wonder what went through her head. Do I (a.) get out and enter into a discussion that at this point looks like nothing more than the formal prelude to hand-to-hand combat, (b.) drive around her and enjoy a rare glimpse of an idiot chasing my van on foot, or (c.) run this crazy woman down as a favor to all the world?

If it's fame she wanted, belligerently flagging down an approaching van that is being operated by a person that is still seeing red from an altercation they shared mere seconds ago... well, that'll get you a Darwin Award.

Sadly, we were never able to sort out the scene. For the most part, out of embarassment for her, we continued on down the road, but we almost wrecked our own vehicle due to rubbernecking. Like a morbid fascination, it is one of those sights that is repugnant and, yet, transifixes you. It's like staring across time at who we were before society lost it's sense of humor about conflict resolution. In other words... Catfight! Catfight! :p

Whenever I'm at a loss to explain a situation, I turn to cinema. There are several instances that come to mind that typify the feeling I had of watching this scene unfold. One is from Bill Murray's Quick Change in which Bill and a cadre of crooks accidentally wander into a bizarre ritual while they are lost in New York. They pull up to ask for directions. The man they pick is a stoic, older Hispanic fellow who is sitting on a bike in the middle of the street. He seems distracted by something up the road. They turn to see what has his attention. Another Hispanic man sits opposite him on a bike of his own. As if on cue, they begin to pedal ever faster towards one another with predictable results. That's right, they were jousting. They even had rakes and brooms in their hands to mimic lances. And what do you say to that?

Another is the movie Wonder Boys. In the particular scene, Michael Douglas, Robert Downey Jr., and Rip Torn are harassed by a gentleman they bestow the made-up name "Vernon" on. He's an African-American guy that they characterize as "president of the James Brown Hair Club for Men". He seemed to believe they were in his car and proceeds to chase them around the block, disappear down an alley, and re-emerge on the other side directly in front of them. After a beat, the exchange ends when he jumps on the hood of the car, leaving a large dent, gets down, takes a bow, and promptly runs off.

At a time like that, you just gotta go with Rip Torn's appraisal of the whole scene. His response was apropos. "What the hell was that?" *-)

Ruby goes to Cajun Vegas

Yes, I went to the casino over the weekend. The short and sweet of it is: Casino - nothing, ruby - $295 richer. [invoking the Texas vernacular] Yeeeeeehaaaaawwwww!!!! That's right, we Texans love nothing better than to gallop across the border into Louisiana and rustle us up some dinero.

Actually, the casino and I weren't dukin' it out. The poker rooms are set up so that the casino takes a "rake" from every pot. They are the only guaranteed winners. The participants (ten to a table) vie with each other Texas hold 'em style.

I "vied" for eight hours that night and came out just shy of three C-notes richer. A friend of mine wasn't so lucky. He hung himself with copious amounts of scotch and bad calls. Probably roughly $50 of my winnings came from him.

I can't post more about it this night. I'm off to play some pool with a friend. I'll continue on about the adventure tomorrow. Until then, poker players...

*-)

Is it tomorrow yet?

[emoting a la Jimmy Swaggart]

I lied the other day when I said I would post tomorrow. I take the responsibilty. I shoulder the blame. [breaking down] I have sinned before you, O Lord!

[wiping away fake tears, brightening]

But I had a damned good reason. I have, in fact, been working 2 jobs for the last week. I am in the midsts of transferring my skills, my expertise, and my white ass from one firm to another. Yes. I got me one new job, but I must relinquish the old one. Transitioning comes at a price though, and I will miss the people I've worked with. It is bittersweet at best.

I had the opportunity to do the same Dave-Chappelle-as-Jimmy-Swaggart, over-the-top breakdown on the phone with my family and friends. "Momma! Daddy! Look at me! I'm finally respectable!"

So, with what amounts to two part-time jobs until my two weeks notice is up, my father's and my birthdays, casino trip this weekend, etc., it has been busy around here. I'll spare you the gory details.

I'm looking with relief toward the coming of weekend. With one more week of this ahead, I must put my freak on and take it off in the span of a regular workin' stiff's weekend. Whereas, I've had Mondays off regularly since my current firm placed me, rather roughshod, on reduced hours awhile back. I didn't even get vaseline with that.

I'm kind of forcing out a post here, and it feels that way. I have, otherwise, been more free to post at my leisure, and those seemed to come more naturally. The last thing I would ever want to lose by whoring myself out to the Man would be my sense of humor about the whole thing. That references the late, great (?) Philip Johnson, an architect that was famously quoted as saying, "All architects are whores." Of which, his example may reign supreme.

In the end, it is a steady job. I hope to balance out the mundanity of having a staring contest with a computer screen on most days by engaging in other interests. I'll be trying to get involved in a monthly poetry reading that goes on down here. There is a somewhat large, annual poetry fest coming to Houston in October as well. I may try to interject myself into that world a bit more. It is still my plan to apply for film school this fall for a start next fall.

If, by some stroke of luck, I was accepted, I will fiendishly plot my escape from the straight-jackets of servitude to this profession. Though I dearly love architecture (the finished product), I am loath to say the same about "archi-torture" (the process of making that finished product). Where was that realization back when? :p