Why didn’t anyone tell me…

Bought a race car.

Really?

Why, yes. For $150.

What?

It’s a ‘91 Mazda MX-3, with all that heavy annoying glass removed except the windshield, all that heavy creature comfort nastiness removed, like carpets, door panels, and handles and things. Gone! It’s nothing but a shell with an engine.

Wha… why?

24hoursoflemons.com, that’s why.

Oh yeah. I believe the word you’re looking for is Awesome. See you on the track. The car to look for will look like Cookie Monster.

Graceling

So at first, there was a lot of kitch. A lot of too predictable-ness. An ominous guy appears in chapter 1 that is able to counter her, what a surprise, he’s ALSO a super-rare fighter. Yeah, we won’t be seeing HIM again. And he won’t be the love interest.
But the thing is, that having pushed through the bad, it got better, and quite a lot better. The chase sequences are good. The love sequences, not so much, but the action stuff is so good that you put up with it.
All things told, a good read, and I’ll pick up book 2 if it comes along.

Band of Brothers, which I’m finding utterly fascinating. Yes I know I’m about two years late to this party. My family has never been a military one, so these stories are foreign. I’m completely hooked with 3 hours left in the book.

Ultralight roadster, 47 mpg, racetrack worthy. Bolt a couple seats on the back and it’s a family car. It doesn’t rain in California anyway.

And I WANT ONE. Just not orange.

2011 Lotus Elise S, 46.7 mpg - not kidding

Well, just finished. Brave New World by Aldus Huxley. Alright, maybe in the ’30s this was crazy hardcore scifi porn (suggesting that people have intercourse is the limit of its graphic nature), but in the new millennium, it just bored me to tears. I barely remember the characters names and it’s only been 3 days since I finished it. Let me spare you the trouble:

SPOILER TIME!

In the future, people are manufactured a-la Ford. All instances of the word “God” or “Lord” are replaced with “Ford”, as he is their deity. This is mainly to piss off the reader. People have purple eyes or something. This is some side effect of the test tube people-growing process (Matrix anyone?), which they are very proud of. Parenting as we know it is a lost art, replaced by – wait for it – pills. All your needs are cared for by pills (watch Equilibrium). Some disgruntled stooge and his floozy go out to go camping and see “natives” in Arizona, and come home with a “civilized woman” that was lost on a camping trip 40 years ago, and her *gasp* natural born son. They return, the woman doses herself to death on the magic pills, and the son is the only person that can feel any sympathy for the dying, so he throws a fit, gets dragged off to the Principal’s office, and they go all poly-sci theory on him for a while. Somewhere along the way he falls in love with the girl that went camping and discovered him, but when she offers to sleep with him for nothing, he calls her a whore and decides that people are scumsucking meatsacks. He decides to go live au-natural off in the fields outside London (hah!). The New World people catch up with him and notice that he’s taken up self mutilation because he’d rather feel pain than make sense. At this point in the book, you’re hoping he hits an artery. It turns into a media circus, he shouts at them, they ask him to hit himself again. The reader cheers with the crowd. The girlfriend-wannabe shows up, boy hits her (presumably killing her, it’s never made clear), and an orgy breaks out. He wakes up and hangs himself.

Real feel-good book there.

The point is, this book, while it may have been somewhere between shocking and progressive during the ’30s, is just pointless now. I can see it as maybe the first place that many people will have encountered some of these ‘ideal society’ ideas, but the modern versions are more current, more polished, and closer to home. Save yourself the time – leave it on the shelf in the public library.

So I finally saw Million Dollar Baby last night. Wow what a film. But as I was thinking about it later, I thought, “But this is Hollywood. How will they do the sequel?” And I was off. And so, humble readers, I present to you, my draft plot of next summer’s blockbuster hit: Million-and-one Dollar Baby.

WARNING

If you haven’t seen the film – which I wholly suggest you do – don’t read on – it’ll ruin it for you.

Frankie has taken up ownership of the cafe indicated in the movie. He spends his days cooking behind the bar to keep busy. He discovers that his misery for lost loved ones in the past is only satiated through work, and even that is not enough. His detachment from his competitive boxing days and all the people he knew is eating him slowly. He makes friends with the locals and lives in complete isolation otherwise. He has learned of the warrant for his arrest related to the death of an invalid, and has changed his last name.

A couple times a week, an overweight kid comes in with his grandpa. They order a whole pie each and sit quietly for the entire afternoon, laughing and chatting, always finishing both pies. Time passes, and one week the kid comes, but the grandpa doesn’t. In a deep depression, the kid orders pie after pie, eating himself into a miserable state. Frankie feels compassion for anyone that depressed that has lost someone and they become friendly. Week after week, their friendship grows. Frankie then decides, “Man this kid can eat. I wonder if he could do pie eating contests.” He provides the kid with all the pies he wants and a few months later, offers to take him to his first contest at the county fair.

The kid loses the contest to The Pie Eating Champion Of The World (why he’s in the back woods, nobody knows), but is exhilarated. They work on his technique and come back again for a local charity event. The kid does fabulously, but pukes it up just before the end of the contest. The kid finds that the pies have been tainted, and an investigation is called for.

Around now there are whisperings in town that a stranger has arrived and is asking questions. Frankie starts to get scared about his warrant and suggests they take the challenge in Wyoming eating watermelons in the summer. They pack up and drive north. They arrive and take up training in a rented apartment.

Frankie’s ghosts are getting the better of him now that his hands are idle, and he has started sleepwalking. He wakes up in various places, in barns, on highways, in the woods. He is visited by ghosts of all his previous proteges. Wherever he finds himself, he always wakes up with his knuckles bleeding. He hides this from the kid by insisting that he wakes up early and goes out for walks. The bleeding hands are covered by fingerless gloves. (It is Wyoming after all.) Between training sessions, he is visited even in waking by his previous students, who pass judgement on him.

The kid wins the watermelon contest handily – and his first win is accompanied by their first glimmer of hope. They plan to travel to Michigan to enter a hot dog contest next. The kid is now troubled by indigestion issues. They visit a doctor, who tells them that the tainted pies have left him with internal scarring that may limit his ability to keep up the eating contests. The kid presses on regardless, counting on the resilience of youth to make up for the problem. As they are leaving town, The Stranger’s pickup appears, and they pass in the street already on their way to a different location. On the road, late one night, Frankie’s ghostly apparitions appear in a line on the highway and he swerves wildly to avoid them. They chalk it up to driving drowsy and pull off at the next town to rest. Frankie is still disturbed.

In Michigan, they take up training for the next contest. October is now fast approaching, and savings are running low. They need to win the next contest to move on to the next town and stay ahead of The Stranger. The kid is starting to experience serious discomfort most of the time from the stomach scarring. Practices are shortened, but they persist. The contest is delayed two weeks. Finances getting tight, Frankie decides to tough it out and hope for a win. There should be just enough. Nothing is heard of The Stranger, but The Stranger has heard tell of the next contest as well.

Halloween has arrived in rural Michigan, and the contest is hosted on the fairgrounds with the local festivities. The Stranger is already at the contest. Frankie and the kid arrive without observing The Stranger who is milling around looking for them, a Stetson on his head as disguise. They go to the contestant’s stalls in the barns provided for them, and set up. The kid hasn’t eaten since two days ago and is famished. The smells of the food are becoming hard to ignore. Frankie is being tough on him to get his game up, and the kid is looking pale and beaten down.”Get on with it coward! They’re tubes of meat!”

The kid snaps. He grabs Frankie and bends his neck over backward, biting. He roars with a demonic sound. Frankie falls to the floor, dead. The kid hears screaming and runs out to the fairgrounds, only to see Frankie’s previous students looking pale and dripping blood from their mouths. A scrawny kid with curly hair runs past, yelling, “CARDIO!” They all start running after the kid. Our kid grabs the nearest stationary person and begins to devour them messily. The Stranger is back in his pickup truck. The Stranger smashes the accelerator and pins the kid between the front of the truck and the ice cream shop.

“Zombies! I’ve got to get to Tallahassee,” says the man, and drives away in his pickup, Twinkie in hand.

Yesterday it rained big-time here in Sunny Northern California. During church I was requested, nay, commanded, to run out to the car for our insurance cards for some random reason. I was wearing the suit that inspired this little memory:

After the run to the car and back, I was wet to the skin pretty much all over except the shoes. I noticed a number of curious smells coming from my suit. I was able to pick out (in no particular order):

Cologne (mine).

Barf (not mine).

Formula.

Soggy wool.

Reconstituted drycleaning fluid smell.

Cheerios and/or cheezy crackers.

Fruit snacks.

Chalk.

Now I know I’ve had the suit cleaned since then, and while I’ve accepted that I will have booger and drool marks on my shoulder until the youngest hits about 5, why do the smells remain?

Yuck.

Notes that seem to need clearing up on the internet:

1. Handbrake is still your friend. In 0.9.4 (current version) use the profiles named “High” or “Normal” and all is well. They support HD if you see note 2.

2. Keep it under 4 gig. If you’re encoding to HD – make sure to use the ‘target size’ instead of the quality slider. I usually set it to Normal, 3900 meg, 2 passes. Then – and this is important – go do something else for 12 hours.

3. The ElGato Turbo HD encoder DOES make PS3 friendly files in 1080p mode, size permitting (see 2). A friend is performing vicarious encodes of the Iron Man 2 trailer for me, so I can’t answer all your questions yet. But they do play and look good. Oddly, they are bigger than the source, but we’ll worry about that more later.

4. ps3mediaserver works great, especially if you don’t feel like compressing your ISO images. This includes seeking, playback from ISO images, etc. If you do decide to encode down to the PS3 native formats, it’s just like having it on your local disk. And the price is right!

This is as of April 2010 and an up-to-date PS3. Kids currently watching *redacted* without scratching discs, thank you very much.

Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton. I’m really going to miss having my one Crichton a year. Much more than that and I get all cynical, but once a year and they remain fun.

This one is about a cutting-out expedition by our heroes. The characters are distinct and memorable, the setting is good, and it has that Crichton-ish feel for the environment. Yeah, I know, stupid sounding, but oh well. Just don’t let facts get in the way of a good naval romping good time and it is quite enjoyable.

When I got to the halfway point, the story that I figured was the main plot was done. Then I realized there is a lot more book coming. So, puzzled I marched onward, and it took on a subtle twist I should have expected. And now, another quarter book in, things are still not resolved.

Can’t wait for the drive home!

So now I have a question for you all, my three loyal readers. I joined this Facebook thing in an effort to reconnect people to people – specifically myself to more distant relations, and myself to long lost hometown friends. But I can’t help but think as a new user, why do people stay there?

I look down all the ’status updates’ for the people I know (and some I barely remember) and there isn’t a single original thought, not a single question for input, not a single insight. If it’s an online diary, why is there no thought or apparent effort going into the writing? It’s clearly not a collaborative environment – there’s little incentive to keep up a conversation. It’s not designed to be a convenient way to connect to your friends and take conversations OUT of their environment, as they go to great lengths to keep you from getting those contact points. It’s the whiteboard on the dorm room door – unimportant notes that maybe someone will read, maybe they won’t. I see lots of mental detritus, thoughts of no consequence and provoking no response. Which begs the question – why bother at all?

What is it with the world’s constant need for updated status? How many times a day does someone need to visit myFlitterFaceSpacePlanet to read that their friends are still in front of their phones or computers, not doing anything interesting, because they’re reading someone else’s status? How many times can you see your friends say, “Having a pee,” “Look at something interesting someone else did,” “Going out for a bit,” before you realize that these events aren’t news?

Just because we have the ability to constantly stream what we’re doing doesn’t mean we should. What we should have is a system that makes it easier to share actual thought streams, provoke conversations without arguments, and help people get feedback from their friends in the real world. And I think Facebook has failed catastrophically at that.